


The Dark Horror on the Horizon

by Bracket_the_Indecie



Series: The Lamb and the Knives [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Graphic torture scenes, Loki's family, Loki's grand scheme, Lots of Norse Mythology here, Nine realms at war, Odin is a dick, Odin's A+ Parenting, Reconciliation with Thor, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-10
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-18 08:54:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 46,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bracket_the_Indecie/pseuds/Bracket_the_Indecie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki's sentence for his invasion of Earth is Punishment by Ordeal. During this ordeal his once almost-wife, Sigyn, appears to help him through it and support his plan from inside his confinement. When Odin suddenly releases Loki to Earth with Thor, the brothers get a chance to reconcile before it becomes apparent that something is wrong back home and Sigyn returns to Midgard with the news Loki had suffered so much to make sure never happened. The Other has made it to the Nine Realms, Asgard lies in ruins and the sons of Odin are called upon to meet their fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Punishment by Ordeal

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all, I'm doing something I don't usually do which is post up a work in progress, but I wanted to get this out so I would have continuing motivation to keep writing it :) This is my first published Avengers fic and have leant quite heavily on Norse mythology here in what I hope is a good way. I promise I'm not just re-writing the old stories, after the first part (Loki's punishment) the rest is mostly mine!

The damp cavern still echoed the sound of Loki’s own screaming back to him, even though his voice was ruined and hoarse, unusable to communicate his rage and pain. First had come the ritual humiliation, then the pain and then the isolation before he was left with all three for some indeterminate amount of time, forgotten and in pain.

The humiliation punishment had been painful and undignified, just as they had wanted it to be. Paraded before the Court of the great and good of Asgard then held down by Thor, Tyr, Odin and Sif while an odious little hairy man, Brokk, with bad teeth, pushed a blunted needle through Loki’s lips, drawing magical thread through the bleeding punctures, ensuring his lips could move only an inch apart, enough to get a straw through and tiny chunks of food. He had struggled and protested, refusing to let them just have at him without a fight, and he had given Thor and Sif good matching bruises from the heel of his boot as he thrashed wildly on the cold floor of the throne room. He had spat curses on their names and pleaded for them not to go through with it, but they were stony and grim and held him down without any give or comfort. The pain of the first puncture was nothing compared to the second and the unkind pull of his ‘seamstress’  to bring his screaming mouth to a close. Brokk had taken his time as well, and while he finished his work, Loki could only scream and moan through shut lips and the tears of pain rolled into his hair, the needle had been enchanted so it would burn like a poker through his skin and the thread was not only unbreakable, but ensured the pain from the initial punctures would remain fresh and undiminished for as long as it weaved through his skin. Thor, to his credit, looked rather green by the end of the macabre ritual and had been the only one to hold a limb down without hurting the writhing god, all the others crushed Loki or squeezed too tightly. The eyes of all of Asgard bore down on the trickster, some horrified by the creature they had seen their prince become and some with mirth in their eyes as an unloved wretch got what he deserved. Frigga had not been present.

It was not long before he saw his adoptive mother though, she was waiting with a tear stained face in the dripping, damp cave Loki was all but dragged to by his escort. In her hands were the bloody sinews of the guts of a creature, her pale gown stained and gore spattered across her graceful face. These guts where to be his chains then, for blood magic was one of the oldest in the universe and time accrues power, so even words would bow before blood and Loki’s magic would be useless in deference to what was to be used to bind him. He looked around to where they would tie him, perhaps simply lock his limbs together and leave him in a corner to starve, but he had been promised Punishment by Ordeal and he knew the sewing of his mouth was a side show. A rock jutted out of the centre of the cave, rough, but not jagged, as though it were halfway to being smoothed over by the flow of water. Bones, tibias and fibias had been worked into the rock, bleach white with water and age and his legs gave way as he saw it was some grim sacrificial table for him.

Tyr hoisted him up and placed him on his back on the rock, the uneven surface digging into him already before the Allfather took the bloody entrails and wrapped them around the wrists, ankles and throat of his adopted son, whispering the words of powerful magics that would keep his devious prisoner from breaking free. For a moment, Loki felt strangely warm and comforted, the binds had obviously been plucked freshly from the poor beast that had been used and were still warm. A familiar sensation tugged at him, something that was faintly comforting, but he could not place it because the feeling was only ever so faint and he could not concentrate through the punishing haze of his ordeal. His legs were secured before his arms were pulled back uncomfortably and locked into place without any give, if Loki ever wanted to struggle or writhe in pain, the movement would strain and tear the muscles and the trickster was acutely aware of that fact. Odin was making no attempt to hide where the sources of potential pain would be coming from, Loki fancied the Allfather wanted the prince to know so that the weight of his situation would crush his spirit more, if it could not have been so thoroughly crushed already. This was always to be his fate; punished for doing the wrong thing and punished twice as harshly for taking the right path.

The chaining was complete and Odin led the small group out like a funeral procession.

“Thor!” Loki cried, muffled, through the stitches. To part his lips so much sent searing pains through his head, but he had to speak. “My children…” was all he managed to say. Thor looked to Odin.

“Your children will not be punished for your crimes,” he promised. Loki’s head swung back to look ahead of him, the closest thing to a sigh of relief his mangled mouth could manage. He did not see the look of hatred Thor passed to his one-eyed father. The rock to Loki’s prison ground into the stone floor with an ear crunching scrape before there was total silence. Even his thoughts about the silence in which he found himself seemed to ring loudly and bounce from the stone walls across his face and all around him. He gingerly tested his tethers, the angle of his legs was such that it would require strength he did not have to move them so awkwardly and his shoulders protested when he tried to bring up his hands. The sinews around his throat allowed him to move his head from side to side to a limited extent, but he could not move his head up or forwards without his binding throttling him, cutting deep into his neck.

A grating noise of rock on rock sounded above him and a small hole of light she through the hatch at the top. Odin’s grim eye looked through it for a moment before moving away and Loki took a deep breath: his ordeal was coming. The light was soon blocked by something coming down the hole, something wet and slithering.

A beady, glinting eye came into view, a wide, gaping maw and long, curved teeth hanging from a slack jaw, a serpent. It was gold and emerald coloured, something so brilliantly coloured had to be venomous. It stopped some way above Loki’s face, his eyes wide and fixed upon the creature that had been sent to torture him and the shaft of light from the outside was extinguished with deafening finality.

The snake did not move, that is to say, it did not move of its own accord, it swung slightly as though tied by a string on its tail and as the minutes passed, Loki became certain that the creature was no longer alive. He frowned, he wasn’t sure what Odin had in mind by tying him down and hanging a dead snake over his head, but that didn’t stop him from worrying about what was to come as he knew it would had to be horrific. Perhaps the serpent was the bait for some terrible monster that would come and eviscerate him, whereupon he would be left to heal until it was unleashed upon him again. This and thousand other possibilities, each more brutal and savage than the last until something hit him in the face, a searing pain in his cheek which felt as though it had stabbed right the way through his head and a sprig of echoing pain shuddered down his body in sympathy. He looked around, trying to figure out what had stabbed him, whether there was some invisible torturer in the cave with him when it happened again. His lungs expelled an involuntary grunt of pain as it hit him again, close to the last site of impact, his cheek feeling as though it were aflame and his mind was fuzzed by the shot of pain.

It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, pain that did not diminish, that seared through his body and seemingly right through his soul as well, knocking dents in his mental resolve that he had tried to build up far more quickly than he hoped would be the case. He was looking into what could quite possibly break him.

Looking into it. He opened his eyes and looked at the snake, its jaw hinged open and a pearlescent bed of moisture gathering on the tip of a razor fang. When the liquid dropped, it splashed on Loki’s face and he grunted wildly with pain as it splashed to just under his eye into the sensitive flesh there. The swinging serpent ensured that the drops of venom spattered on different parts of his face, but the pain always shivered its way through his entire body like fiery eels. The drip was steady, a disgusting rhythm that was already driving him wild. It would have been going on for two minutes or twenty thousand years, suddenly time had no meaning when he was in horrific anticipation of every jolt of unceasing pain, pain he could not become accustomed or hardened to, a pain every bit as searing and cutting as the first time it ripped through him.

Time didn’t mean anything. The venom drip, drip, dripped onto his face, sometimes burning through his eyes if they weren’t closed, sometimes on the raw sides of his face, his lips, already burning from the stitching. One time he screamed enough that his lips parted and invited in a drop of the agony venom into his mouth, burning through his tongue and already raw throat. His entire existence had reduced to the pain that seared through him and waiting for it to come and tear through his soul again.

The venom had dripped into his mouth a few times now, each time provoking enough pain that his body would rack with spasms and convulse, pulling at his tortured shoulders and stretch the muscles out of the joint a little further. There was something about the taste that was jogging at his memory, though it was difficult to place as his conscious mind was saturated with raw pain, it had room for little else. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to realise, perhaps a day, perhaps a year, but eventually the recognition clicked in his mind and he ran cold, the kind of cold that was so empty it took the edge off the pain caused by the venom. The venom pierced so readily and caused such intense pain because of what Loki shared with the serpent, the pain was born of a desecrated bond between parent and child. This was the last form of Vali, one of his most mischievous sons. This meant that the tethers of entrails that were chaining him to the rock were forged of the parental bond too and suddenly he came to know that Narfi’s sinews were wrapped around his limbs, warm and comforting. The horror took a few moments to sink in and when the next drop of venom hit his face a roar of anguish and devastation ripped out of him, uncaring of the pain to his arms or the stretch of the puncture wounds as he strained the thread sealing his mouth.

“ODIN!” he screamed, pain and rage racking his body, convulsing as he tried to rip through his bonds, tear the thread or tear his lips, any way he could get out of here and get to Odin’s throat, that wicked, depraved, beast of a man who had so cleverly hid the truth from Loki, whether it was about the prince’s past or how much his children had been accepted by Asgard.

He thrashed and yelled for days. Years. Seconds. Every cell in his body screamed horror, vengeance and sorrow at his fate and the fate of his children. Frenzied, he wondered what had become of his other offspring; Fenrir and Jormangandr were already bound and suffering for their crimes (mostly the crime of existing) and he was sure Odin would not do anything against Hel, as she was a queen and had special protections. He had never liked the fact that he was forced to agree to Hel’s exile, disguised as a deferential offer of respect, as it meant that he had only seen his daughter a handful of times since her coronation. But now it would be protecting her from a fate like that of the rest of his children and therefore was worth it.

Loki didn’t love much in this world, but he had the love of a father for all of his children, no matter how monstrously they had manifested and he had to hand it to Odin, the Allfather really had hit on the one way to truly break Loki’s spirit. When he had earned himself a position of power, regardless of which throne it had happened to be, he had planned to break his children free of their own chains and have then at his side to inherit the glorious empire he would make. How far he had fallen, and his dreams had fallen further. His rage and pain had never been so all-consuming, not even in the pit of that stinking miasma that had clouded his mind so thoroughly.

 _‘Well played Odin, you can see me broken, lying in the entrails and spittle of my dead sons. I hope you can see my hatred, eyes that once held love and adoration are now cold and burning for you, Allfather. You have destroyed what I hold dear, so I shall destroy your precious things, because I won’t be here forever’._ He swore the oath to himself as he shuddered and moaned with the pain of the ever-dripping venom, his face wet with poison and tears, but hell-bent on an exhaustive way to make this adoptive father pay for his crimes.


	2. Love's Reprieve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is granted some reprieve from his savage punishment and gets some answers to questions that have been burning him for hundreds of years. If only Odin was not at the source of his every misery he would not feel quite so powerless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note I do not have a beta so mistakes will creep in. If someone would like to notify me of things that could do with changing I would be grateful!

Loki wasn’t sure how he was still screaming, but somehow he was, a jolting keen when a droplet of burning venom dripped like acid on his face, lips and eyes. He was sure though that it wasn’t just the pain he was yelling at anymore, there was so much more than just the agony in his physical body that tore his tender heart into chunks; his slaughtered sons, the fiancée who left him without a word, his false family who showered him with empty words of love and the dark horror that stood on the horizon, blocking the sun and creeping closer. It only fuelled his anger further that his rage, which felt so explosive, was confined by the tethers it could not escape to vent and it had built up inside him so powerfully that he felt he could die with all the rage and hate behind his eyes.

Then something very strange happened: the venom did not drip onto his face at the expected moment. He was hesitant to open his eyes because there was little worse pain than having that frightful liquid drop into his eyes but after at least a minute (or at what he thought was a minute) nothing happened. A soft female voice spoke to him.

“Don’t worry Loki, you’re safe from the venom now,” she said gently. The pain the venom brought him was replaced by a horrific longing. He knew the voice, bittersweet  memories springing to mind at the sound of it. He reluctantly opened his eyes and saw the soft curves of loose blond curls hanging over him, a hand holding a bowl above his face, even the splash of venom collecting in the bottom striking the wood sounding like ball bearings dropping into a steel bowl. He looked up to her face, as fair as the day he brought her back to Asgard amidst a triumph where he was the one praised for a great victory over a strong enemy, not his brother, and he returned to a parade of honours, spoils and a beautiful wife-to-be. She smiled gently, she could see her eyes mapping the new scarring on his face.

“Why?” he croaked; a loaded question with several meanings.

“The most deserved question. I’ll start with the meaning to that question that you intend. You mean why did I leave you in the middle of the night after you had brought me to Asgard with the intention of marrying me?” Loki nodded minutely, his feelings of rage simmering down into conflict and confusion and anticipation of the answer to the question that had plagued him for the last few hundred years.

“I knew you were a slipskin and I was curious about what your real skin was. I always thought that your visage as it is now was not your true one, after all, you looked so completely different from Thor and his parents that I wondered if you had changed your appearance to distinguish yourself from him more.” Loki gave her an incredulous look.  “I was curious,” she offered by way of excuse. “So, when you were sleeping I cast a spell on you that would reveal your true form to me.” His eyes widened, hurt and rejection shook through him visibly. She soothed him with a tender caress to his sore face, her touch cool and calming. “I expected your hair to go blonde, maybe a change in eyes. Imagine my surprise when your skin changed colour!” Loki betrayed his self-loathing at his Jotnar nature by looking away from Sigyn. She turned his face back to her.

“I didn’t leave because you are Jotnar, Loki, please believe that of me.” She paused for a moment with a quiet laugh, as though laughing at some kind of in-joke. Loki glared. She caught his stare and cleared her throat, her face falling back into sincerity as she continued with her story. "Before I could wake you and ask more questions a guard appeared in our chambers and said that Odin demanded my immediate presence. I could hardly say no to the father of the man I was intended for.” Loki snorted and she smiled. “It’s obvious he is not your father by blood, but he was your father nonetheless, and the king of the realm I was coming to live in. He was alone and I knew he had seen that I had discovered your true nature. As I crossed the threshold, my own spell that bound me to Aesir form was undone and he saw what I was and not a citizen of Asgard rescued. He explained why he had taken you and that you did not know about your heritage.” Loki huffed through his nose with burning hatred for Odin. Here her gentle face took a slightly sharper edge as her own anger bled through into her expression.

“I was presented with a choice. I would be helped leave Asgard that very moment and taken, with a secret escort, to a realm of my choice to live quietly as I had before I came to Asgard, or I could stay in Asgard and be exposed as an intruder and threat and be punished to the fullest extent of Asgardian law, which would mean harm to me and my child. I didn’t realise it, but Odin told me I was pregnant.” Loki’s face scrunched up for a moment as he comprehended what had been said to him. Another child! He had been blessed with another beautiful offspring, his heart swelled with joy and pride but was quickly was overtaken by the overwhelming sadness that he had never got to even meet his child, nor raise it. Again. Once more Odin had taken his child away from him, denying him the full joy of fatherhood. The only one of his children he had been able to raise from an infant was Hel, and while those years were some of the best in his life, they were always tainted by the fact that he could not bring her mother home to live with them as a family as Sigyn was not Asgardian and would not be allowed to court a prince of the golden realm, let alone bear and raise his child.

“Odin told me that there was no way he could let a –“ she abruptly stopped herself and blinked back a tear as she tried to keep back the tide of emotions welling up in her. Loki snarled, even through his stiches, knowing that Odin must have damned her as a filthy whore or somesuch name meant to demean and degrade her into complying with his will. “I could not stay in Asgard, I was a threat and he could not risk me telling you about your true origins. I did the only thing I could. I had him send me back to Alfheim. I waited for you there. I waited for fifty years to see if you could sneak back to the light world and I could offer you the explanation you deserved, but Odin kept you on a tight leash from that moment. You had only a very few closely supervised trips away from Asgard after that, did you not?” Loki nodded, horror in his eyes at his adoptive father’s actions. “He probably fed you some grey truths about withdrawing from the affairs of other realms and concentrating on Asgard and how the age of interference was over,” she said, a nasty snarl on her lips. Loki had rarely seen her look that angry or cruel but if anyone deserved such vitriol it was that one-eyed liar. A growl escaped his throat, unbelieving of all the cruelties and injustices Odin had rained upon Loki who had done nothing to warrant such treatment; and the Allfather had the nerve to punish Loki for his actions when the grey-beard deserved to be in this cave as much as the trickster god.

“I am sorry, my love, but I need to empty the dish, the venom will fall upon you afresh for a few moments.” Loki’s eyes flew open, wild and afraid, begging her not to let it happen, pleading with his eyes to not be subjected to that savage agony again. She afforded him a sorrowful look and then took the bowl away, leaving a drop of the horrid venom to fall all the way to his skin, causing the sensation of burning and tearing in his face as it hit his cheek and then slid down the side of his face. He howled in pain, his screams edged with such fierce anger as he realised his rage had not abated, but had simply lain in wait. Sigyn was gone for three drops of the venom, a time that may as well have been a year to Loki as time easily lost its meaning under the influence of the wicked toxin.

“I am so sorry,” Sigyn said, sadly tracing his fresh wounds with her cool hands, taking the edge of the pain away. Her eyes shimmered with tears as she felt so overwhelmingly pained to see him like this. “Perhaps I can cheer you a little with good news?” she said, stroking his face affectionately. He looked sceptically up at her. “The child we made on our short time on Asgard together grew healthily to term. I bore a beautiful boy,” she said, a proud smile gracing her features. “Like us, he has a slipskin nature, so much so that when he first came into the world, he transformed into his other shape, surrounded himself in an egg and demanded to be born again,” she chuckled at the memory and Loki’s face was torn between amused and incredulous.

“I had to swallow the egg and wait another few years before he decided it was time to put me through the pain of labour again. But he hatched with no problems and I would have born him a thousand times for that alone. He is called Svali, and you would be proud of his strength of arm as well as his abilities with seidr.” Her face radiated pride and Loki couldn’t help but stretch his mouth into a smile. Sigyn slipped her free hand into his.

“Odin did not get his hands on this one, my love, at last a child reared free of him. I hope one day he will meet his father,” she said and Loki nodded, indicating that he would like that very much. “Odin cannot keep you here forever, and if he plans to then he will have no say when Thor takes the throne. You will see your sons and daughter again, Loki, I promise you,” she swore. Suddenly, she looked up, as though alarmed and her eyes filled with a little fear; a horrid contrast to the love that had been shining through them a moment ago.

“I must go. I can only remain so long before I am discovered. I will return when I can,” she said urgently and kissed his forehead quickly before vanishing. Loki had a moment to feel the disappointment of her disappearance before being lanced with pain from his son’s venom and his torture resumed, but now he felt stronger in the knowledge that the rest of his family was safe, only he was the one to suffer now and that brought a little comfort. The pain lashed him again and he screamed.

 


	3. The Dark Horror on the Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigyn's been where she shouldn't have, but her misadventures have reaffirmed her faith in Loki, who remains chained to the rock for his Ordeal. Things are beginning to move behind the scenes, but Loki's actions have given everyone a second chance at survival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry this has taken so long, I am still writing it! I have spent almost all of my free time in December knitting Christmas presents and not on my fics! It's all change for Loki after this, so enjoy this latest offering and please let me know what you think. If anyone would like to beta for me I would really appreciate a PM as this has only been looked at by me!

Loki tears of pain ran freely down his face as there was no point hiding them from a non-existent audience until the pain ceased again.

“Hello again,” Sigyn said and Loki’s lungs sucked in a deep breath of relief that she had returned to him and was removing the pain once more. “I brought a couple of things for you,” she said and he opened his eyes to her gently smiling visage. He felt relived enough to go to the effort and pain of returning her smile, albeit briefly. She touched his face quickly as if to prove to him she was real before resting the other bowl she was holding on his chest. She picked out a piece of fruit that had been chopped into very small pieces and gently pushed it through his lips with cool fingers. The piece was small enough to slip through the stiches without requiring him to open his mouth very much at all and sweet apple tumbled into his mouth onto his parched tongue, instantly refreshing his stale mouth and the juice from the divine fruit wetted his dry throat which he hadn’t realised was so raw and sore until now. She fed him the tiny morsels of Idunn’s sacred fruit, enough to refresh him and allow his body to continue to weather the venom’s ravages without beginning to deteriorate as he had been on the verge of doing. She tipped the juice that had collected in the bottom of the bowl into his mouth and he drank greedily.

“Thanks,” he managed to say, the thread tearing at his lips as he said the word, but his voice sounded much smoother and cleaner than it had done since he first entered this forsaken cave and was made to screech and scream at frequent intervals every day.

“I have something else from you. I went on something of a crime spree in Asgard last night, stealing a apple from Idunn and this, a raven’s skull from Odin’s aviary,” she said proudly, taking the tiny bleached bone from her pocket and holding it up. She took a piece of thread that was curled up inside the skull and very carefully threaded it around the most prominent stitch on Loki’s face, tying it to the bone and resting it on the nearest flat surface – his chest.

“What are you doing?” the skull squawked and Loki twisted his neck to be able to see it. “Is that thing talking?” it said again, little beak flapping like a moving mouth.

“Think the words you wish to say, the skull will say it,” Sigyn said, although she knew Loki had figured it out before she had got to her second word, her lover was hardly an idiot.

“A lovely piece of magic, where did you learn how to do something like that?” Loki asked through the skull. It was wholly weird for him to be thinking the words as though he was actually speaking them but to hear them in a strange shrill voice instead of his own smooth tone.

“Hel gave me the idea, she uses something similar to open the mouths of the dead who have had their voices taken away by funerary rites,” she replied.

“There is something different about you, Sigyn,” the skull cawed; Loki was clearly happy at having his speech restored and was taking the opportunity to ask all the questions that had been locked up behind the stitching of his mouth. She raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

“Your voice…it’s much higher than it used to be,” he said. To his surprise, she blushed a deep rose colour and looked away in embarrassment.

“I…worked on changing it and speaking more like an Asgardian woman,” she mumbled, hoping in vain that his questions would not go further.

“Freyja was just being a jealous old bag, you shouldn’t pay her any mind,” he told her. She did not look back up as she burned with the memory of her glorious introduction to Asgard, on the arm of Loki after having been ‘rescued’ from the clutches of a mighty beast who he had slain. She had drank and made merry at the feasting table of Odin’s great hall, enrapturing the present company with the tale (a total fabrication) of how she had come to be in monster’s possession and how Loki’s great strength and skill won the day and her hand. Most of the Aesir roared appreciatively of the tale which hit all their favourite story buttons of romantic love and incredible exploits, but Freyja has worn an ugly and jealous look on her face all evening at having been usurped, even if just for an evening, by the arrival of this new woman and had teased Sigyn relentlessly for her voice. Sigyn had always had a deep voice, even when they had met in Alfheim and she was in the form of a light elf, her voice was distinct from the usual higher fare of the other maidens and it had charmed Loki instantly. It was a very pleasing voice and could be put to great sensual use, it was a sound of sophisticated beauty, and certainly not worthy of the ridicule Freyja had handed out on that night.

It seemed that Sigyn was affected enough by it to learn how to change her lovely natural voice and make it something more usual and less likely to stand out in a crowd.

“It sounds more feminine,” she said by way of excuse.

“I’m hardly one to talk considering my voice is currently that of a long deceased bird, but your natural voice is beautiful and would bring me far more comfort than this strange tone you’ve adopted since.” She made eye contact with him and smiled weakly.

“Ever the charmer,” she said, her voice lowered by controlled degrees. She looked around and Loki wondered if their time was up already.

“I haven’t got long, so I need to spoil the mood and ask you something.” She was tense and closed off to him now and he fell into similar seriousness. “The _Chitauri_?” she said, disgust painted all over her face. Her look and the way she found it difficult to get the horrid word out of her mouth made it quite clear where she stood on this issue. Loki studied her intensely, looking for her motive for this questioning, and he wondered if she was a very clever interrogation technique. He would not put it past Odin to seek out Loki’s old flame, coerce her co-operation and get her to ‘appear’ at the moment his spirit seemed about to break and make him spill his secrets by taking her into his confidence. Then he wondered what the end game would be if this was the case and what he would possibly have to lose; after all he still believed that his invasion of earth had been the right thing to do, and while it had not gone quite to plan, he had still achieved the most important goal: the tesseract had not fallen in the hands of the Chitauri’s master. It’s not as though Odin could possibly punish him more harshly for revealing the kind of despicable company he lowered himself to keep while he struck bargains with the slimy Chitauri. But he knew he could never be too careful when it came to something the Allfather was potentially involved in and Loki knew that as accomplished a witch as Sigyn was, Odin was better and could be influencing her. He thought it best to test the waters first.

“Take your skyglass and look, at night and you will see a new star near the constellation of the gilded bull. Take a very close look and you should find something of an answer to your question,” the skull cawed. Sigyn frowned in confusion; she was clearly turning the gears in her mind trying to figure out what he could be alluding to.

“I will, my love. For now I must leave you again, I’m sorry,” she said sadly and with deft fingers, untied the skull and string with one hand then gave him a kiss on the sore side of his face, her sweet lips numbing his wounds for a moment until she vanished and the venom was free to burn new gashes into his skin.

 

**==**

 

Sigyn did not return for a very long time, so long in fact that Loki wondered if she had been a hallucination brought on by delirium at the pain and the venom he had swallowed inadvertently. There had been no other contact with the world outside the cave; Odin, Frigga nor Thor had once been in by the boulder that blocked the entrance to the cave or the small hole above him from which they had lowered the corpse of his son to hover over him like this. He had no proof of her presence at all, the bowl she used to catch the venom was not around as far as he could see and there was no reflective surface to prove that some of his old wounds had healed a little from her touch and kiss until all he was left with was his hope and faith that it had been his almost-wife.

What, in the real world outside the cave, turned out to be months later, Sigyn returned to the side of the man she loved, perhaps foolishly. Loki positively burst into tears as he felt reprieve from the stabbing gashes of the venom and the seidr-rich presence of the woman he would recognise in any skin, whether her Aesir one, as she wore in her visits to him, or her light elf form that he had first met and fallen in love with. For a moment he was consumed with relief and joy to know that the pain had stopped for a few precious minutes and a comforting voice and touch was next to him.

His joy was rather interrupted by the look on her face when he finally was able to open his eyes again and allow the second or two they needed to adjust to the light. She was tired, drawn and miserable; her hands were filthy with grime and blood, the spatter of the gore staining her clothes. Her hair was awry and out of place, matted and knotted in several areas, sweat and mud dirtied her face in a most unflattering way. For a moment neither of them said anything, Sigyn looked shell-shocked, wide-eyed and afraid to speak lest her words not do justice to the things she had witnessed. Loki allowed her a minute to try and speak, but time was being wasted and he did not want to spoil his pain-free minutes with silence when all he wanted to do was recite every last word he knew and then sing them. He grunted to get her attention and when she turned her eyes to meet his (and how cold and afraid were her orbs), and nodded towards the skull in her pocket. She snapped out of her reverie almost instantly and began to tend to his needs, exercising excellent dextrous ability by tying the cord to the botch-job sewing piece on Loki’s lips without appearing to need much help or make the suffering god too uncomfortable.

“What happened to you?” he asked as soon as the last knot was tied and his voice flowed into the raven skull and spoke in a near-comical scratchy cawing voice.

“I just escaped, I had to come here as soon as I could to tell you that you were right and I’m sorry I ever doubted you,” she said, a little breathless and still somewhat panicked. “I looked into the night sky like you said and I saw something, a darkness blocking the star of the bull’s eye.”

“How close is it?”

“I travelled there,” she said, her low voice shaking and full of reproach for having made the journey. Loki looked scandalised.

“Why?!” he said with his real voice, the stitches pulling painfully on his mouth.

“I was curious, you would not have directed me towards it if it was not important. I had to understand, Loki; I could not bear to tell Svali that his father allied himself with those disgusting Chitauri because he was simply feeling bitter towards Asgard. That’s one of the reasons I came to find you, I had to know that this was just another one of your clever schemes. When I saw that the star had vanished from the sky and that something was blocking it I called in a favour owed to me and travelled by seidr to the obstruction.” She paused for a moment, trying to get her thoughts in order.

“The journey was disorienting,” she explained as she held out a little longer to finish her story. He nodded slightly in understanding, a much as his tethers would allow. “When I arrived it wasn’t a comet or meteor, it was a hive of ships moving together. They were docked together like the sections of a wasp nest, with any drones circling the mass and it was burgeoning with your old allies,” she said and Loki snarled angrily.

“They were _not_ my allies,” he said shortly.

“You could have fooled me,” she shot back, equally as curtly.

“That was the point,” he said, eyeing her with disappointment; he had expected her to know him better than this, not to fall into the same lie he had woven for everyone else. He supposed that sometimes he was an even better liar than he realised. Sigyn’s hand left his for a moment and drew in the air in faint pale lines of magic the symbols she had seen on the sides of each ship and on the chest of every Chitauri soldier. Loki whimpered involuntarily at the sight of it and looked away, it was already burned into his mind; he had no wish to see it more than necessary. Sigyn quickly waved the smoky lines out of existence with a frantic wave of her hand and then clasped Loki’s again. He squeezed back.

“But how did you get in such a state? Surely a matter of teleporting there and back did not ruffle you so?” he asked.

“No, when I recovered from the shock of what I had discovered when I arrived, I snuck inside.” Loki’s eyes bulged, his jaw muscles moving as though he wanted to say something, but had lost all idea of how to put words to it. “Entering a hatch was childs play,” she said, “and because it was one of the core structures there was very light security inside, no one was expecting an intruder would be able to sneak on board without something lighting up. I did notice seidr sensors though once I got close to the core interior of the ship and had to drop all my usual wards and skin to be able to navigate the halls unseen. It took me some time to get to the centre of the ship and found out what he wants… I always thought it was strange that you weren’t able to take Midgard with the number of Chitauri you had; you’re a master strategist, you could have taken Earth with fifty troops, Loki. I have to say, you lost very convincingly,” she said, her face beaming with surprise and awe as she was realising the scale of Loki’s scheme. The trickster had cause to look a little smug.

“The Midgardians are no doubt feeling very proud of themselves. Even Thor did not suspect that the conquest of the middle realm was not my ultimate goal. But I did it, I won. The tesseract is lost to the Chitauri and back in the hands of Odin black-heart; he is a monster and cruel to those who fall out of his favour, but he at least will use it for better means than the Chitauri.” Sigyn sighed and sadness fell over her features once more.

“I wish they could know this, that they were aware of your sacrifice and cleverness,” she said, stroking his hand. “I must empty the bowl, hold strong my love,” she said and was away for three drops of the venom which pieced his body through his face and ran sympathetic pain through his chest and down his strained legs.

“They would never believe me, not even Odin, the master of lies,” he said as soon as Sigyn had returned and stemmed the never-ending flow of terrible pain.

 “I saw some kind of pedestal made for it, I believe they intend to use it to channel its power into focussed vessels, but beyond that I could not say for I was discovered and had to make a run for it. I had to fight my way out until I could return to the spot Alfheim’s magic had deposited me in order to call them to take me back.”

“Stark’s weapon killed all of the Chitauri who had dealt with me, they won’t know the tesseract is within the nine realms.”

“And meanwhile you suffer…” she said, pressing their heads together, her arm twisting strangely to hold the bowl in place while she knelt over him. She couldn’t maintain that position for long, so she quickly kissed his marred face and sat up straight again.

“Sigyn,” he said, hesitating. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but thought the better of it and waited for him to continue. “I can’t trust Odin’s word on anything. He said that my children would not be punished for my crimes, but Narfi and Vali’s fate proves otherwise. Our children are my only ones left, please protect them from Odin,” he pleaded.

“Of course. My time is up, I have to go. I will return when I can,” she pressed one last kiss to his bloodied lips before vanishing and leaving a precious few seconds of cool, beautiful feeling in her wake before the venom sliced through his reprieve and reminded Loki that despite his clever scheme and service to the nine realms, he was going to be rewarded with his horrific torture of the searing pain and slimy feel of his son’s entrails cutting into his sore limbs for an indefinite period of time, perhaps forever.  

Sigyn had thought she was doing him a favour by bringing some of Idunn’s special apples to aid his healing and prolong his godlike life as well as ensuring he did not die of starvation or thirst, but perhaps her kindness was misplaced. If prolonging his life merely meant prolonging this horrific torture then maybe he should refuse her next offer of apples which he was pretty certain would come again soon.

When the next droplet of bloody venom stabbed him just below the eye his anger flared and in doing so, hardened his resolve. He had to stay alive to get out of here, because he would find a way if Odin had no plan of releasing him at all and then he would get revenge on the man he once called father for the crimes committed again Loki No-Sire. There would always be time enough Odin to be made to repent and Loki would prove that he was made of sterner stuff than the one-eyed monstrosity. 


	4. The Charity of Odin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki hasn't seen Sigyn in some time and his torture and Ordeal is dragging on and on until one day the boulder rolls back and Thor comes to free his brother.

Sigyn had only visited once since she had revealed she had gone chasing off after the hive of ships belonging to the Chitauri. She had not stayed for as long as usual, the few scant minutes they had together cut down ever more by an unrevealed time-pressure, and she had mostly stopped by to say that she had checked up on their children and none of them had suffered any reprisals for their father’s behaviour, with the obvious exclusion of Vali and Narfi. The only possible slight exception to this was Hel, who on a formal visit to Asgard was taunted about her father being such a disgrace whereupon she threatened to whither the speaker’s genitalia to near-death and immediately departed from the golden realm in a trail of offended indignity.

Loki wished and hoped that Sigyn had not been caught, that Odin or Heimdall had not seen her secret meetings with him and overheard the personal things they had spoken about. He knew her to be wily and savvy, after all those were qualities that had attracted him to her in the first place, but he also knew that Odin was in not short supply of them himself, even though no one called him the god of lies and deception to his face. No, Loki had been lumped with those titles, but he would always stipulate that he learned from the best.

His thoughts, as ever, were punctuated by the stabbing pain, like a white hot needle searing through his head and shooting down his whole body, with the steady drip of the venom suspended above him. His mind always shot blank when the droplet found purchase in his abused skin, the pain pushing out any series of thoughts for the moments when it burned as hot as a star and he cried out with a raw voice, tears of pain often running into his hair.

What he did not expect was to hear a grinding sound, rock upon rock grating together and a slither of light entered the dull chamber. A grunt of exertion came in through the gap and Loki craned his head as far as the sinewy bonds would allow, but was distracted again by the drip of liquid agony that bore into his face. He roared in pain, unable to open his mouth to expel the sound properly, so it rumbled through him like a wave of rage, the feelings of resentment back and fit to burst. The rock at the mouth of the cave was finally wrenched back and for a mad moment Loki wondered if Sigyn had come to spring him loose and take him to hide in one of the many secret places she knew in the nine realms. The person who entered had fair hair, but that was where the similarity to his beloved ended; burly Thor, with his armour, hammer and hair now long enough to braid trudged inside, his footsteps sounding odd and flat when all Loki had had to listen to for the last who-know-how-long was the drip of venom and his own screams.

Loki wondered what the thunderer could possibly want down here, his expression was grotesquely sympathetic to the point of pity, possibly the only expression he had seen Thor afford him since their battle on the bifrost bridge. It was not in Thor’s nature to taunt a fallen man, and he knew sentiment would be keeping him from shooting barbs at Loki while he was afforded punishment like this. Perhaps he had news, maybe Sigyn had been caught after all and he had come to tell Loki that she was being sent down here to join him; the trickster’s own mind betrayed him as he ran through so many scenarios in the few seconds he had before the next splash of venom took him by surprise and he opened his mouth unthinkingly to scream. He felt the stitches tear into his sensitive flesh before he felt the pain sear his lips and make his mouth throb, the warm blood quickly cooling as it trickled down his chin and throat, dying quickly and making him feel sticky. Thor responded to his brother’s cries of torturous pain and rushed over to Loki, cupping his hands and putting them above the trickster’s face. Loki’s shot him a confused look as he wondered what Thor was doing, but when the golden prince of Asgard shuddered and whimpered in pain, his hands shaking, the younger ‘brother’ realised that Thor was catching the venom in his bare hands.

In that moment Loki’s whole world and every resentful thought he had let fester in his mind about Thor seemed to be overhauled. Thor, idiot that he was, was willingly taking the soul-rendering pain of the venom to spare his beloved adopted-sibling the pain of it. The fact that he had remained in place after tasting the first drop of the mad agony that liquid caused was proof he was willing to suffer for Loki and that Thor’s large heart had not forgotten him. Thor smiled weakly at the naked gratitude on Loki’s face, an expression that plainly stated he was re-thinking everything he thought about Thor. In that moment of pure relief, when no sour thoughts interrupted his feelings, Loki understood that Thor would have to love him in some capacity to go through this, it could not be something he would endure for any pathetic stranger and he remembered a slither of the bond they used to share as brothers. It made him tired, bone tired of the hatred that had poisoned him for so long and, while it would take time to learn to trust Thor again and consider opening himself up, this went a long way to a good start.

Loki’s feelings of hopeful joy were largely squashed as more people entered the cave, namely one Odin Allfather. Loki himself was surprised at the surge of raw disgust and loathing he felt at the sight of the one-eyed king of Asgard and, despite his throbbing face, managed to twist his lips into a snarl.

Odin sought to make no great ceremony out of this, and just as well for Thor whose hands were now shaking considerably as he held the venom cupped in his hands.

“Loki, you are to be released from here and sent to Midgard. Its people have many questions for you and they deserve the answers they seek. I hold myself satisfied that you have served your punishment for your crimes against Asgard and my royal house, so when you have completed whatever sentence the humans judge to be worthy I shall bring no more misery to you. Unless you bring it to me again first.” As he spoke, his voice curiously not as pompous as Loki seemed to remember it, Tyr and Frigga quickly untied the stinking entrails from around his extremities. Frigga’s hands gently and slowly pulled his arms back into their regular position by his side, and he moaned in pain as the abused muscles contracted and squeezed in ways they had not done so for a very long time. Tyr, a little less kindly, helped him to sit up. The bravest of the Aesir host made a move to snatch the snake down from the ceiling to stop Thor’s suffering as now he shook quite violently, but Loki hissed and struggled; he would not have some witless brute handle the body of his son! Frigga seemed to understand and moved towards it herself, gently pressing its hinged jaw closed and then using a tiny spark of magic to cut the rope it had been tied to. The serpent fell into her hands and she curled it respectfully into a square of cloth to carry it out safely. Thor emptied the burning contents of his hands into the corner of the cave, hissing and groaning as the liquid ran like fire over his skin. His roughened hands had been pinked, and a blister had formed on one of them, where the venom had first struck.

Despite this, he shook his head to Tyr when the other man offered to carry the quarry and Thor slung his arm around Loki to help him up and to walk. The process of standing on his own feet found Loki with more trouble than he had wished for, since his legs had been pulled back and made to be still for so long that his muscles had forgotten what bearing even his decreased weight was like. It did not go unnoticed by Loki how Thor held him; close with Thor slightly in front of Loki as though shielding him from something that might jump out at them. Sensing his ‘brother’s’ tension, he surveyed the scene with intelligent eyes, noting the unspoken signs around him of what might have transpired in the outside world. Tyr was clearly there simply as a guard and part of his duty when he had helped drag Loki down to this forsaken place in the first instance, his rigid stance and emotionless eyes spoke of duty and nothing more. Thor’s warmth and protectiveness told him that the thunderer perceived a threat to the man he still regarded as his younger sibling. What was most telling was how Thor stood so very far away from Odin, who was alone at the mouth of the cave; even Frigga, his loyal and loving wife for most of their lives, stood at the back of the small party, a little grim faced and making her position quite clear – not with Odin on this point.

The king huffed slightly and led them out to begin the cruel staircase that Loki was not looking forward to using as a re-introduction to walking. Thor easily bore his weight however and mostly carried the younger god up the steps until they reached the light of the golden realm, the sunshine blinding Loki for a few long moments. He had been chained in a dull cave for so long, the strength of the Asgardian sun was overwhelming.

“Take him to the chambers prepared. He is to wash, bathe and ready himself for his journey to Midgard on the morrow.” Loki narrowed his eyes at how Odin could not even address him to his face and spoke as though the trickster was not even there. He thought he had truly fallen far in the Allfather’s esteem, if the stolen Jotun child was ever held in regard at all.

“I leave this in your capable hands, Thor,” Frigga said, before Odin could make comment or command. His single eye looked perturbed for a moment, but wisely said nothing that would antagonise his already upset wife.  Tyr took this, accurately, to mean that he should go and Frigga stared expectantly at Odin.

“I must return to court,” he said, in the closest thing Odin would ever come to a mumble and walked away briskly.

“I am glad you are from that dreadful place,” the queen said softly, and while she was glad, she could not bring herself to smile at the state of the young god she still considered in her heart to be her son. “I know there are no words I can say to you for what you have suffered. If one day you can forgive me it will be more than I deserve,” she said, her gentle eyes now watery and sorrowful. “Take these scissors, Thor, they will cut those wicked stitches.” She passed him a pair of delicate golden sewing shears that clearly had a razor’s edge to them and he put them away carefully in a pouch on his belt. Frigga leaned forward to her youngest and hesitantly, for fear of him rejecting her comfort, placed a kiss on his cheek in the most motherly of ways.

She swiftly departed before they could see her spill the tears that had been threatening in her eyes and Thor gently guided Loki round to a different corridor, down to the royal residence inside the palace.

“Odin-king wanted has had a room prepared for you, but I choose to ignore him. I will take you to my quarters instead where the bath will be hot and the bed is soft; I will not have you given a paltry room after such a debased cave as you have been confined to,” Thor announced. Loki raised his eyebrows, surprised at Thor’s apparently easy defiance of his father-king.

Thor’s quarters were not as he remembered them; there were significantly less trophies from his wild hunting days mounted on the walls and fewer of the display weapons in brackets. There were a few pictures in glass frames, no doubt gifts from his Midgardian friends and Loki felt a low surge of jealousy that Thor could just blunder along in any given situation and not only defeat it, but come away with shield-brothers as easily as he ate or drank. Loki felt he had been cast in a poor light as a betrayer quite unfairly; he had played many tricks on people and they more disliked being caught out than appreciated his wiles, yet he very rarely betrayed a person’s trust. If someone asked him to do something then he would get it done, usually by no small amount of effort on his part. It wasn’t really betrayal if the person didn’t trust him in the first place, yet every special favour Thor has asked of him (usually to get him out of trouble) he had done (often by taking the rap).

Thor sat him carefully on the magnificent bed that dominated the sleeping room and went into the bathing room to draw a bath. As Loki was realising what it meant to sit in some degree of comfort again, he realised Thor had mentioned something very telling; he had called his beloved patriarch ‘Odin-king’, not the usual ‘father’ nor had he used the respectful epithet of ‘Allfather’. Thor was not a subtle creature and his use of the other term was not a conscious one, but nonetheless told Loki much about the state of the father-son relationship that had often been regarded as the pinnacle of fatherhood on Asgard. Thor clearly still cared for the tortured trickster and Odin did not; had this caused a dived between them?

Loki wondered if this should bring him satisfaction, that he was punishing Odin by muddying the love of his golden son and stealing him away through Odin’s treatment of Loki and not by anything the younger god had done himself. As he examined his feelings, free of the pain of the venom and so able to focus his mind more clearly, he found it did not bring him any joy to know that Thor was being hurt like this, to realise that your father is not the man you thought he was and was capable of hurting those he once proclaimed to love. Loki knew Thor was torn with thoughts that if he ever made a serious mistake whether Odin would wreak a terrible revenge upon him as he had done to Loki and his sons instead of just an exile. Loki remembered the time when he wished nothing more than for Thor to feel as he had, to know what it was to fear, mistrust and doubt your father, who was once an unshakable foundation of his life. That time seemed very far away now, on the other side of his torture when his anger seemed to be a physical presence in his blood, growing, swelling and trying to rupture out of him in furious spurts of rage and blood. Part of him felt disappointed with himself that he had not held on to much of it, since it was so very justified, but he felt tired and wished to indulge in some small sort of trust, even if it would blow up in his face later. He would never trust Odin again as long as he lived, and he hoped one day to look into the king’s eyes as he paid for his crimes against Loki, but Thor had showed Loki patience when he, by rights, should have given up on the trickster. For this reason Loki allowed the thunderer to carry him out of that cave, to snip the string from his sore lips and help clean the wounds.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I hope you enjoyed this installment! Still in the market for a beta if someone would like to read through for me. I especially would like someone to read through in the upcoming chapters to make sure I'm coherent, which is important as I'm getting into the meat of the plot for this first part. Thanks :)


	5. The Treating of Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor escorts Loki out of the horrid chamber of his torture and Ordeal, to treat the scars of the punishment. He does not set out to begin healing Loki's heart, as the pain is still far too visceral, but the right now Loki must be tended to before the trip to Midgard.

Thor eventually returned to the sleeping chamber, his armour and cape removed in the wardrobe between the bathroom and bedroom, and hair tied back in a scruffy tie.

“I have prepared some shallow water for you first, brother, so that we might clean your…wounds and then you may soak for as long as you desire,” he said, hesitating at the word ‘wounds’. Loki wondered if Thor felt ashamed to have been party to his Ordeal, to be complicit by not going against the Allfather. He simply nodded in return and offered a continuing expression of neutrality.  With all the grace and dignity he could muster, Loki slowly pushed himself off the bed and onto two very unsteady feet. His knees ached and throbbed painfully from so long in the same position and he nearly fell back to the bed before he established his bearings and was able to hold his head up with a semblance of the dignity he held before. He gestured with a look of his eyes to the thunderer’s arm and Thor understood immediately, offering his own steady one as a support and they crossed the bedroom and wardrobe before getting to the bathroom. The huge marble tub that was the magnificent centrepiece of the bathing chambers was filled up to the ankles with water and Thor opened a panel at the side so Loki could step in without having to climb in. Simple magic around the panel ensured the water did not flow out of the tub and together they sat on the bench that ran around the edge.

Thor had a cloth and the scissors Frigga had given him at the side of the tub.

“I am going to cut the stitches now, are you ready?” he asked, looking a little ill at the prospect. Loki nodded, trying not to appear too emphatic as he was ready to have the burning string out from inside his skin and digging into the skin around his mouth and the sensitive flesh on his lips. Thor took the shears and leaned closer; Loki tilted his head up a little, but never once took his eyes off of Thor or the shears.

“I will be as careful as I can brother. Try to hold still,” he said and brought the gleaming point of the metal up. Loki opened his lips as far as he could without making him tremble from the pain and Thor snipped the strings at each time they crossed his mouth. He was done in seconds and then Loki allowed him to pull the thread from the holes, his hand gripping Thor’s shirt so tightly his knuckles turned white. When the last piece of bloodied, rusting string was pulled out, Thor discarded them all in a bin over the other side of the tub and he wetted the cloth in the warm water at their feet.

“The healers gave me special salts to wash into the water that will help with the healing process,” Thor explained in a strained voice. He began by washing Loki’s face, the months of sweat, tears, and blood that had built upon his face needing to go before the wounds themselves could be properly washed and tended to. Loki seemed to slip into some kind of trace, a conscious state but not entirely responsive; although Thor was sure he was very aware of everything that was being done to him. The trickster looked exhausted and unwilling to fight right now, but Thor had been sure to put the shears well out of his reach, just in case Loki panicked or decided that now was a good time to get his revenge. Thor couldn’t be sure what his younger brother  was feeling and if he was feeling particularly vengeful towards Thor, but the thunderer supposed that there was no way he would not _not_ care for Loki.

Loki himself was very surprised at Thor’s gentle touch, he didn’t think the thunderer had it in him to not be a ham-handed oaf who was unable to catch a butterfly without crushing it. In this instance, though, Loki was happy to be proven wrong and sat patiently throughout the treatment. He allowed himself to indulge in the nice feeling that came from someone caring for him, rather like how it had been when Sigyn had come to his side. He had only seen her a handful of times, but it felt as though it had made all the difference to his sanity. He wondered if he should mention her to Thor, but it still felt like too great a risk, even if his brother did not tell the secret to anyone else, Heimdall could well be listening and he did not want to risk anything happening to her because of her kindness. Perhaps he could whisper it to Thor when they were on Midgard and away from the poisonous golden realm.

“Here, would you like to wash your mouth?” Thor said, breaking Loki out of his thoughts with a cloth and hand-held mirror. Loki nodded and took the items. It was a strange feeling, knowing he was able to talk again, but after so long without the ability he felt as though he had lost the desire to say anything that could not be achieved with a gesture or look.

He raised the hand-sized glass to see his face and he shook so hard he nearly dropped it. His face was not how he remembered it to be, long welts of an angry red seared thin trails cross-crossing over his face and his mouth now twisted and distorted into a shape most unfamiliar to him. He had always liked the way he had used to look. It had been so different from Thor, distinguishing him in his own right and such a pride had, inevitably led to some degree of vanity, it was one of the ways he defined himself. Now that had changed, it left him to wonder if the twisted visage he now wore was an apt reflection of the wounds and bitterness held in his soul. Would everyone look upon him now with pity, as though whatever he went on to do would not matter in their eyes, would they seek to only drag him back to this horrific point in time? That seemed to be in the nature of most, to pull a person down to their lowest point if such a thing were exposed whilst standing on their highest pedestal and shoot from there. That mortal woman, the Widow, was an expert of doing such a thing, making him think he was shooting down at her from her position of weakness, when really she was watching him, aloof and above him in the position of greater power.

He dabbed at the inflamed punctures around his mouth, trying to ignore the sting of the warm water and soft cloth to the torn skin, but the dried blood came off with minimal scrubbing and cleaned up fairly easily. He also ran the cloth along the more delicate stretch of skin behind his lips, on the ‘exit wounds’ as it were and got the stains of blood off of his teeth while he was there; whatever was in the waters was doing an excellent job. All that remained was to press the cloth for a few seconds at a time to his bruised wrists and ankles to offer some comfort to the abused skin there and the much-suffering musculature underneath that had been tightly bound for some long length of time. It occurred to Loki that he would quite like to know how long he had been in that cave for. He hoped it was not as short as a few months because then he felt he would just go mad at the thought of having been in there when it had felt like centuries. It was a place where time had seemed to exist in flux, all relative because on the one hand it felt like years had passed in that filthy cave, but on the other, he could have sworn there were only a few scant seconds between each steady drop.

“How long was I in there for?” he croaked, his first words uttered since the freeing of his mouth and escape from that wretched place. Thor looked up and answered instantly, as though he had counted each day.

“One year and two months.”

Loki nodded carefully and decided that wasn’t such a disagreeable amount of time and was willing to accept it. He watched Thor clean the cloth in the reddish dirty water at the feet, his hands still bright pink from holding the venom earlier. It was a gesture that Thor had not needed to make, he could have simply helped untie Loki that little much quicker, but the act was a symbol of something greater, of a willingness to suffer for one he loved. The trickster knew he did not have his magic available to him, after all, the Allfather had suppressed it well, but he did have a few natural tricks that he would be able to utilise. He focused on a small puddle of water that had gathered on the bench next to him and touched it with a fingertip. As he concentrated, his hand turned a faint blue and it was hard work to get it to respond to his mental commands and relinquish the pink colour entirely. He did not allow the transformation to creep up his arm and instead kept it localised, but the natural icy coldness of his giant kin was able to freeze the small amount of water he wanted solidified. The moment he stopped thinking so hard, his pink colour flooded back into it like reconnected circulation. The deed was done and he had no reason to go back to that form entirely, or think about how he had come up with a use for his ugly Jotnar form. He picked up the ice and put it in between the layers of a folded cloth, giving it to Thor and pressing the two large hands of the thunderer around the cold cloth. The thunderer hissed with relief as the burning from the venom abated somewhat.

“Thank you,” he said with utter sincerity. A mischievous thought chased its way around his head, he couldn’t help it; he wondered if Thor was going to be all serious and work, work, work from now on and if perhaps Loki would catch it like some kind of contagion that forced those infected to become serious and mean every word they said.

The rest of the evening passed with little happening and even less said. Loki did not feel the urge to speak any more than he had, and strangely enough, Thor was far too wrapped up on his own thoughts to bother the trickster with many questions or confessions. Loki was very pleased with how this developed and took his long, long bath in mostly comfortable silence.  With no need to make time for scrubbing, Loki was able to bathe until he felt sleepy, impressed by the way the tub sensed temperature changes in the water and heated itself when the need arose.

Thor had even offered Loki the use of his incredibly sized bed, which the trickster had declined with a shake of his head and a word or two; he did not feel comfortable with the situation and opted to lay his head down on the long couch of furs in the opposite corner of the room.  Thor noticed how Loki slept on the piece of furniture farthest away from the door, where Thor was between him and possible invaders of the sanctuary and how the tortured god slept facing the door he appeared to so dread someone coming through.

“Sleep well brother, as much as you can. You must be fit to travel away from here in the morning,” came Thor by way of saying goodnight. He got a few incomprehensible half-sounds, half-snuffling from Loki before he was pulled into sleep himself.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Loki is tentatively trusting Thor for now, but next chapter they get the delights of Midgard to endure together! Many many thanks to my beta Pensivefighter who has taken on the onerous task of proofing this story :) Please let me know what you thought of this chapter guys!


	6. Prison Planet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor escorts Loki to Midgard and there is a confrontation with Iron Man, who is rather miffed that there are once again unexpected Norse Gods on his patch, and Loki at that.

Loki appeared much better after a night of sleep in which Thor thought him more dead than resting, but the big brother had not disturbed the tormented trickster until breakfast had been brought to his chambers. He cut the apples he had requested for Loki into small chunks and allowed his brother to eat silently while he prepared for the day ahead of them; Thor was looking forward to seeing Midgard and his friends again and spending some time, hopefully, with his brother and taking care of him in his post-torture period.

“The king has tasked me with seeing you to Midgard, and I promise you that I will deliver you safely.” Loki looked suspiciously at Thor; the thunderer had never been capable of subtlety, but now the trickster was certain his brother was trying to be discreet. Thor was clearly holding back his true feelings, something strange and probably difficult for the warrior, but it was the words he did not say that rang the alarm bells in Loki’s mind. It was as though he could not say what he really meant for fear of the walls having ears…or Heimdall’s eye was upon them.

An honour guard was present either as a show of support to Thor or to spit on Loki’s name and tell him they’re glad he’s being thrown out of the golden realm, good riddance etc. Loki’s face was hard and cold and he feigned apathy for leaving Asgard behind him, even though in his heart he was deeply sorry to leave behind his home, where he had spent his childhood and had been raised to love. In an act of symbolism, they were to be sent forth from Asgard at the still tattered end of the bifrost bridge as a potent reminder of the damage Loki had caused to the realm and he knew Odin would be waiting for them near the edge of the world, the dark energy summoned and ready for them. He had fleetingly wondered how Thor was planning on returning, but he hoped his brother  would be staying with him for a little while yet; he didn’t think he would last amongst the inane humans raining their judgments upon him as though they had the right.  He wondered how they thought that they could come to a reasonable and just sentence when they knew a fragment of the whole picture; when the only evidence they had to go by was the lie they bought hook, line and sinker with his invasion with the Chitauri. The primitives didn’t even realise that he had brought he Chitauri to Midgard for slaughter, to erase their repugnant existence from the universe and protect the tesseract.

His carefully maintained façade crumbled when they reached the end of the rainbow bridge, the jeering crowds forgotten behind him as he saw Odin, festooned in his formal armour and seated regally upon his royal steed. Loki snapped. He lunged forward, snarling and roaring curses at Odin. His hands were tied, so there was little he could do to actually harm the king, who steered an uneasy Sleipnir back a few steps. Thor caught Loki by the arms and forced him back, but the trickster fell back on his favourite weapon , his words.

“You monster king!” he spat, eye wide and spitting hatred. “You savage me as part of your sinister punishment as though I had disemboweled your son and worn his entrails on my gorget! You, the greatest liar the nine realms have ever known, banish me to a world of ignorant idiots and you have the nerve to sit there upon the back _of my own son_ and twist the knife you planted so firmly in my back!”

“Loki!” Thor protested, trying to calm his brother and keep him from lashing out at the king without hurting him, however, Loki was not listening.

“How many more of my children are you going to destroy?!” he screamed, his face wild and hot with fury. It had been the one issue that had preoccupied him in that cave longer than any other. He could stand for it if he was punished solely for his actions, but he would always have fight left in him for the good of his children and he could take pride that he would always strive for his beleaguered children where Odin had never fought for him. He had already let Vali and Narfi down by not being there to protect them from the sick fate the Allfather had inflicted upon them, and Loki had always felt a burden of guilt for what had become of poor Sleipnir, reduced to a pack horse. He had known that, while the many-legged stallion could only manifest in a single form, that of the horse, Sleipnir was capable of thought and feeling on the level of the average person and had often demonstrated intelligence in excess of Thor’s (perhaps not the highest standard, but one Odin seemed happy to measure worth by).

“Sleipnir…” he said as he struggled uselessly against Thor; he had thinned too much to even move the thunderer’s huge arms and he could only notice how Thor had held him carefully so as not to bruise Loki’s arms.

“Loki, please,” Thor hissed in his ear, and Loki threw one last fraught look to his son who was pawing uneasily at the fractured crystal of the remnants of the bifrost. He snorted softly, hot breath whooshing out of his broad nose and he ducked his head, a little gesture to assure his mother that he would be alright. No matter the inanity and humiliation of being treated solely as a horse when his mind was so much more, Sleipnir understood the heartache it had always caused Loki and sought to comfort him at this moment; there was no telling when they might see each other again. Loki huffed angrily and shook his arms out of Thor’s grip.

“Monster-king,” he spat at Odin and turned his back on the sovereign of Asgard and refused to look upon him while the Allfather reeled off some dry spiel about Loki’s crimes still requiring redress on Midgard and he would be sent forth from Asgard to serve the rest of his sentence. He felt Thor’s hand, large and warm, on his shoulder and then the grey, dark energy began to snake around them, creeping in curious tendrils until it snapped around their entire bodies and Loki felt, for a few seconds, that he simply didn’t exist. This was certainly inferior to the bifrost, no smooth nearly euphoric flight through the glorious spectrum of the bifrost, just a cold snap out of and into existence; snatched out of the tarnished gold of Asgard and unceremoniously chucked them into the atmosphere of Midgard, high in an empty sky and hurtling towards the hard ground.

Loki immediately snapped the token bonds around his wrists and spread his limbs out, making himself as wide as possible to help slow his descent. A fall to earth was not something he fancied when he was fit and well and was definitely not on his list of things to do in his current state. He hoped Thor would not indulge in some stupidly heroic sense of last-minute timing. He looked around, despite the wind whipping at his eyes and making them water, for the flash of the crimson cloak of the future king. He wasn’t sure how Thor got beneath him, but when he looked down to check his fall-progress he saw a flash to red coming up to him and he was caught, roughly taken in the arms of….not Thor. As Loki grabbed the body that had caught him, he did not feel the warm body or armour of his brother, but the cold steel of something familiar and very Midgardian in nature. A look at the mask of the flying man and he recognised the armour of Anthony Stark, the Iron Man.

Panic welled up on him at the unyielding grip around him, like how he had been pinned down before and he lashed out, pushing at the hold Stark had on him, thrashing and flailing wildly to escape. His mouth throbbed and stung at the idea of being held down again, a potent physical memory of what had happened last time he had been overpowered. He panted and screamed against Iron Man until he managed to wrench himself free and he was falling again.

“You are the last thing I expected to find falling out of the sky, Reindeer Games,” the tinny voice of Stark came out over the speakers in the suit. He was diving again and heading straight to Loki, until Iron Man was suddenly removed from the picture; Thor had swooped down, pulled by the will of Mjollnir, and thrown the suited hero off his course. Thor gently pulled an arm around Loki and stabilised him from the fall, and wrapped his cloak around his brother for the moment as they headed down towards the earth. Loki found it strange, he was comforted by Thor, by his obvious protection, as he had been when he had all but carried the tortured trickster out of that cave in to the blinding light of Asgard. He found his panic subsiding, bleeding out of him into the rich material that was wrapping him warmly and they approached the platform of a hastily re-built Stark Tower at high speed. They slowed to a controlled speed and by the time they landed heavily, he was feeling better. Iron Man followed suit a few seconds later, flipping the face-piece up to show Thor his wholly puzzled expression.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you , Point Break, because I am, but why is baby bro here?” he asked, his casual tone belying his deep concern for the scene before him.

“Friend Stark, I must speak with you, but know that Loki is not here to cause trouble. I give you my word,” Thor announced in his most authoritative and sincere voice.

“You do know that he’s not all too popular around here? Invasion of earth with evil aliens killing hundreds of people, that sorta rap?”

“I am aware of my brother’s crimes, Man of Iron, I helped to fight him or do you not recall that?” Both Loki and Tony stared at the thunderer, he was bristling with tension and an uncharacteristic abruptness.

“Keep your hair on, man,” Tony said, taking a step back.

“May we come inside? I will explain all to you where we are safe from the tiny eyes of your spy-master.” Loki raised his eyebrows in surprise, he didn’t think Thor was capable of thinking on such a level as to consider the broader implications for the trickster’s return and the far-reaching eyes of Shield. Tony looked conflicted for a moment before replying.

“Well, it’s against my better judgement, but just bear in mind that the tower’s only just finished its reconstruction, don’t put any more holes in my walls, doors or windows. Or anything really,” he told them and the floor beneath him opened up in a series of panels to reach up with mechanical arms and remove his armour.

Unsurprisingly, Tony went straight for the mini-bar and poured himself a drink as Thor ushered Loki inside and into a seat.

“Jarvis, pull the curtains will you,” he asked his AI and the windows tinted slightly of their own accord. The light in the room dimmed a little, but on the outside they had gone black and opaque. “Right, I’m going to hear you out big guy,” Tony said, making it clear that he was going out on a limb here and his trust had better be repaid.

“Thank you.  I have much to tell you, and…” Thor was silenced by a hand on his arm from his brother. Loki wanted to speak. Tony took the moment their eyes were off of him to give Loki a good look down and was confused by what he saw; the old war-mongerer looked exhausted, thin, and drawn, his face was blotched and marred with some kinds of wounds he could not idenfity. Exactly what had happened on Asgard?

“Brother, are you sure you are up it?” Thor asked, meaning Loki’s much-abused voice, which was still hoarse and raw from the year of screaming, from the grating slide of the burning venom down his throat. Even the juice of Idunn’s apples had not healed nor soothed it completely and his screaming abuse at Odin not long ago had stretched his voice rather thin. Nonetheless, he pushed himself weakly to his feet, to try and address Stark with a modicum of dignity before his old enemy, but his knees betrayed him and he fell back into the seat with a flump. Tony was intrigued now and absently ran his fingers along the gleaming metal bands around his wrists which so many people had mistaken for a simple fashion accessory.

“Stark, I have been sent here by Odin, king of Asgard, to take your judgment for the war I brought to your world. I have already endured punishment on Asgard, a sentence that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have been tortured and seen my sons eviscerated for my choice of allies and the war I prosecuted against you. I can’t explain to you why I did it, but I would have you know that I have no intentions of terrorising this world again. I have no interest in it now.” His voice was rasping and croaking towards the end, it was the most number of words he had said with his own voice at any one time since he was last on Midgard, possibly at this very tower. Tony scowled as he did not know what to think or to say.

“What do you want from me then? To not punish you for killing hundreds of innocent people? Is that what the sob story is about?” he demanded, fire in his eyes.

   “No, it was so you know that I have already been disfigured and been made to survive two of my sons for this. What else do you want to do to me?” Loki’s words were tough, but the light in his eyes, the fight, was dim and dying.

“What do you mean, about your kids?” Tony asked, suspiciously. Loki succeeded in getting to his feet, but did not face the human man, instead he walked to the window and leaned heavily against it, closing his mouth. Thor turned to Tony with a heavy sigh.

“There is an old way of addressing the most severe crimes on Asgard, it is known as punishment by Ordeal. When I took Loki home, his lips were sewn shut and Odin ordered the execution of two of my nephews, Va…” Loki hissed what sounded very much like a sob as Thor nearly said their names aloud. “The entrails of one were used as the chains to bind Loki and the venom from the other’s transformation into a snake was used to torture him.” Thor held out his hands and Tony saw the redness and blister which had not healed over much yet and the human recoiled in horror.

“The monster-king knew how to attack me in the way that would hurt most,” Loki rasped from the window, unable to look either of the other men in the eye. “I’m not telling you this to beg for clemency,” he insisted, his pride in pieces, but fragments of it still clung to him.

“Please, friend Stark, I ask you give us some time before Loki must stand before the justice of Midgard. Let him return to health and mourn his sons.”

Tony’s first reaction to all of this was to yell that it wasn’t fair of them to just dump him with such an emotionally-charged and morally ambiguous quandary, but instead he drained the rest of his drink. He got out two more crystal glasses and poured generous measures of amber liquid from the matching decanter on the bar.

“You guys probably won’t get much affected by this, but I’m told it’s the thought that counts,” he said, pushing the glasses towards them.

“Thank you, Stark, but I cannot drink abrasive liquids right now,” Loki rasped, glancing appreciatively at the drink. Thor took this to mean that he could have his brother’s portion and downed both measures in two sharp knock backs.

“Look, before I say anything, I need some kind of assurance that you’re not just going to go all Dr Evil again on me,” Tony said, solving the practical problems first before getting too bogged down in the emotional shit storm that was heading his way.

“I know you will not take Loki’s word, so take mine,” Thor announced, standing straighter as he declared his serious intention. “His magic is sealed away in a place the Allfather had kept secret even from me. It is my charge to watch over him and ensure not only your safety from him, but his safety from you before proper justice is met.”

“Yeah but-“

“Tony, he has spent the last year and two months tied down in the corpses of his sons,” Thor pressed, quietly (for him) so that Loki at least knew he was trying to be sensitive, but that Thor’s volume was never usually in control, despite his best intentions. Tony himself was stumped, because on the one hand there seemed to be a lot of things missing from this assurance, anything solid or tangible that would give cause to contemplate hiding Loki from the rest of the world, if he was so inclined to go against Nick Fury. Yet, Loki’s face, from the disfigurements to the broken look in his eyes, was something Tony could appreciate, and Thor had never looked more sincere. Tony remembered seeing the pictures of himself shortly after he had blown his way out of that godforsaken cave in Afghanistan, tortured and mutilated by way of a mechanical crutch cut into his chest. He wasn’t going to stand there and compete with Loki over who had it worse, because Odin had really outdone anything he had been expecting. The old man killed Loki’s kids? That was beyond the pale, and Stark was begrudgingly having to admit that maybe the mad god had got more than he deserved. He didn’t think he would care that much if they’d just sent Loki to the gallows/chopping block/soukyoku, but to execute children for the sins of the their father? That was medieval, and not in the cool knights of the round table kind of way.

“Fine, but where he goes, you go and I bring the rest of the crew in here to keep an eye until we tell Fury,” Tony said, before he had the chance to think about it too much; he could regret his actions as emotional and impulsive later as long as he didn’t consciously map out his exact decision-making now. Loki visibly slumped, in relief, and continued his gaze out the window at the rapidly repairing city line of New York. He could see the buildings which were still damaged from the destruction the Chitauri had brought with them, some being demolished and most just being covered in scaffolding and restored to their former glory.

“Thank you,” he whispered, but it was heard nonetheless.

“Why does Odin keep sending you here anyway?” Tony asked in false annoyance. “Is this some kind of open prison for gods, or a fancy rehab clinic to you guys?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks once more to PensiveFighter who is beta-ing this story for me :) Loki has been granted a little respite for now, but of course it won't last for very long. Please do let me know what you think!


	7. Exorcism of Resentment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and Thor have an emotional head to head in an effort to purge much of the ill feeling that has been festering in the hearts of both brothers.

Tony had set them upon on one of the residential levels, above the R&D floors where they would have the most privacy under the strict condition that Thor would not let Loki out of his sight (unless he needed the bathroom or something, Stark had walked away mumbling to himself at this point). This condition turned out to be an exceptionally easy, yet rather dull one to fulfil for the thunderer as Loki spent nearly all of his waking moment glued to the window, sitting either on a chair or on the floor and staring out into the magnificent blue dome. He rarely watched the city, only the sky, wishing during the day that something good would fall out of it for him, or during the night that he hoped to see something that let him know what was happening out there.

Sigyn’s report of the hive of Chitauri had worried him, they were still in the eye of the gilded bull and had not moved from there in over a year. Could they still be waiting for news from the war fleet Stark had destroyed? Loki had managed to goad an explanation of how the weapon they had sent through worked from a rather pompous, if not still wounded, Stark. He was sure that it had to have destroyed the fleet; there was no other explanation. The Chitauri were hive-minded, once the master controller ship had been decimated, the soldiers down on earth had instantly perished, so nothing could have reported back to their command about the tesseract – right?

Tony, who was not going to leave the building despite Thor’s many assurances, was summoning the various Avengers back from wherever they had scattered to across the globe. Banner was at a conference in California and would be back in a few days; Romanov and Barton had been away for a week on a liaison course with the SAS as they began to expand their skill sets to include battle and war-tactics; and Steve was in the city at the opening of a new youth facility for underprivileged children near to where he had grown up. Steve would be in first and the others had given various dates across the next three days when they would be able to come back for the ‘reunion’ as Tony had put it.

He was still not sure how we was going to put this to his friends, that he had granted some kind of strange, compassionate asylum to their one-time enemy before they gave him up to the vultures to feed on, because he had no doubt that whatever system they concocted to punish Loki it was going to be imaginative. Though, having seen the look in Loki’s eyes when he talked about what had been done to his children, Tony knew he agreed with the trickster god – there was nothing they could do to top that. The man of science tried not to think too much about what he had been told about the horrific slaughter and gutting of a man’s sons and using them to literally torture him, mentally and physically, because it called too many things uncomfortably into question; like his faith that Asgard was a good place they could count to have their back, or that Loki maybe wasn’t quite the evil nut-job he had been happy with assuming he was and may actually be in deep pain. Tony remembered someone saying once that once you let war-guilt creep in, you never really get back to how you were, so he had always made sure to squash those feelings and feel entirely justified for killing the entire Chitauri fleet, beating Loki into the ground and handing him back to Asgard. What made it worse was that Thor seemed to be on Loki’s side in this matter, and while it seemed that the big guy was always going to have a soft spot for his mad brother (no matter how many times Loki literally stabbed him in the back), because Tony was starting to feel sympathy it was starting to add to the list of reasons why he should remain open-minded about this situation.

In the living area of their quarters, Thor was being instructed by a patient Jarvis how to work some of the drinks machines here. The coffee machine had proved simple and easy to use and Thor had felt some kind of pride that he had not broken such a fragile looking device (as to break the belongings of one’s host was a grievous disrespect for his hospitality) and was now being taught the most effective use of the smoothie maker. He knew he had to feed Loki somehow, but his choices were severely limited by his brother’s abused throat and stomach which had been barely filled for over a year and as such would likely not take well to food that was not the apples of Idunn. The disembodied servant was very helpful in providing suitable suggestions and Thor had got to work, if not simply for something to do as Loki was lost in his own thoughts once more, not allowing his elder brother into them.

After what was probably an hour, Loki sipped warily at the tall glass containing the thick liquid and prepared himself for a disastrous mix of flavours; he was already instructing his body not to balk at the taste of it, not when Thor looked so proud of himself. To his great, and visible, surprise, Thor had stumbled upon an excellent mix of flavours and he greedily drank a little more, careful not to imbibe too much at once. Thor took this as a compliment and beamed, settling down next to Loki on the floor by the great window and supped at the concoction he had made for himself.

 “Brother, may I ask you something?” he said to break the silence. Loki nodded, his eyes still on the sky, but clearly listening. “Back on Asgard, when I was banished for my foolishness, you took the throne, you killed Laufey and tried to destroy Jotunheim – why?” Loki looked at him, it was not the question he had been expecting.

“Did the Allfather say nothing to you about it?” he asked, thinking it best to ascertain the state of the facts as Thor knew then before deciding what tone to use.

 “Only you have ever known your true motivations, brother.” There was a pause as Loki gathered his thoughts. As he began to speak, he did not quite make eye contact with Thor, but he was speaking to him nonetheless and in a quiet, calm tone that suggested he was trying very hard to keep his response as measured as possible. He did not want to shout and rant and blame Thor for everything that had happened, but his own feelings about the situation were very strong just the same.

 “At first the throne fell to me. The king collapsed into the Odin-sleep and with you gone, I was to assume command. I had been raised as you had, we had both been instructed in the ways of kingship and yet as I sat on the throne with Gungnir in my hands as the rightful king, every single person, from my so-called friends to the advisors of the court, glared at me as though I had no right to be there. They all wanted me to do the same thing: for me to recall you from your banishment and put you on the throne. However, there were many reasons I could not; I could not disrespect our father so by undoing his last command with my first, as I explained to Sif, and because I knew you would make a poor king. The Allfather had exiled you so that you would mature and learn the important lessons needed to take such a responsibility and I would not have you, as you were then, return and plunge the nine realms into war.” Thor did not need Loki to tell him that that was a pragmatic and objective assessment of the crown prince’s fitness to reign at that point in his life, looking back even the mighty master of Mjollnir was embarrassed by his conduct [back then].

 “No one wanted to understand this. No matter how clear or superior my reasoning, I was seen as a usurper, an undeserving imposter on the throne.” Loki stopped for a moment to take a long drink, wetting his throat and soothing its raw ache. His voice was straining from the burden of speaking and with the passion that gave his words such weight in the heart of the thunderer.

 “It made me to so angry. I had been so frustrated and angry for such a long time, it seemed that no matter how fate fell upon us I would never be worthy in  anyone’s eyes, that my efforts had all been for naught.”

 “I’m sure that wasn’t-“

 “I had lived in your shadow since the day the lie was told that I was Frigga’s second son!” he snapped, not cruelly, but harshly, his voice gravelly with strain and venom. “Smaller, weaker, seen as an effeminate magic-user as compared to the might of the broad, powerful golden firstborn of the king, the very picture of manliness!” The words were pouring out of his mouth now, it seemed that he could not help himself from spilling everything that had made him so angry for so long. “When it was clear that I was not accepted for who I was I tried to change, I did more things like you, I came on your hunts, I learned how to use all the weapons in the armoury, I drank with you and your friends, but still it was never enough!” Loki jumped to his feet, a little uncertainly, and began a weak pace of the room, circling it, but keeping his distance from Thor as though his anger would melt away in close proximity to his brother. He had to get the words out now, had to say this because if he didn’t, he felt as though they would be bottled in forever.

 “No number of hunting trophies or successes in the war games or sparring field won me more than contempt because no one cared for my achievements, I was the spare and you were the heir. It was as if everyone, every single lowlife in Asgard knew I was a stolen monster runt, that I was the discarded, unwanted and wholly disappointing fruit of Laufey. How they must have thought that I should have spared them my efforts to be accepted and just fulfilled my purpose as a pawn in Odin’s game and stay out of their faces, or they only gave me the time of day because I had been brought to Asgard out of pity!” his voice, raw though it was, was rising and his words, despite how some of them cracked under the strain, still retained their power.

 “When I stood with the spear of the king in my hand and every single person looked at me as though I was unworthy to be there, I could not bear it any more. I knew that if I ever wanted them to regard me as something more than just a part of your shadow I had to do something truly memorable, something that would be celebrated, and what better way than to put a permanent end to the race of monsters who Asgard had fought so hard and so bitterly for so long?”

 “But you are Jotun, how could you?” Thor asked, in cold shock from all he had heard. To be finally confronted as the true enemy of Loki when he had never intended for such things to happen, or even noticed them when they were occurring.

 “That grotesque form? I was not going to allow myself to become the monster that they would have me be, I denied them the right to carve me as their evil ways would have dictated. I was a son of Odin! A child of Asgard! And I would defend my family and my home with everything I had. So I deceived Laufey and killed him before he could kill Odin, whom I still loved like a true father, despite his lies to me.” His arms were making sharp violent emphatic gestures to punctuate his words with gravity and meaning where the force of his voice could not.

 “I wanted Odin to awaken to my glorious triumph, to have taken the situation into my own hands and created a permanent solution which would ensure Jotunheim never brought misery to us again! I thought he would be proud, I thought that I would finally be able to step out from behind your shadow and that while you will always be known and remembered as the greatest warrior of Asgard I was to be her greatest general. I saw it Thor! I saw the two of us on the throne after Odin, you her might and heart and I her mind and skill. Together we would have been unstoppable, but I first had to prove myself. What better way to declare to the host of Asgard that I would never side with my monstrous heritage and that I remained true to the golden realm’s best interests.” His passionate narrative paused while he reached for his drink and took a long draught that would layer his throat sufficiently to continue.

 “Brother…” Thor sighed, his shoulders sagging, Mjollnir on the floor in another part of the room.

 “I thought you were jealous or weak when you tried to stop me, I thought you were afraid that my victory would put you in my shadow, that you were angry that I was putting an end to the ice giants where you had not. I never thought that at that moment when we were hanging from the shattered edges of the bifrost that Odin would so overwhelmingly reject me and you looked at me with nothing but pity, as everyone else had always looked down on me. That’s why I let go. It was clear that Odin did not love me, that I had overstepped my usefulness and you…could never bear it if we ever walked the same path as equals, you could never share the spotlight.” Finally his sharp eyes fixed on Thor’s. “What was there for me on Asgard but further misery, ridicule and loneliness?” His mouth snapped shut in a very final way, indicating that he was done telling his story and spilling his heart.

He had not intended to let all of this out, he had not wanted Thor to know and had promised himself so many times that he would not demean himself in such a way by betraying his weak feelings to the thunderer. He squeezed his hands into tight fists as he breathed deeply through the emotions roused in his chest.

Before he could see Thor had moved, the older brother had wrapped his huge arms around his younger sibling and was invading his personal space with intense warmth and sentiment. Loki scowled for a moment and reluctantly raised his arms to complete the embrace.

 “Please forgive me for how I have wronged you, I sincerely rue the day I put hate into your heart.” Sentiment was thick in the air and Thor knew exactly how to cure that. “And Loki, your true form could be a smelly ugly dwarf from the sulphurous bogs of Nidavallir and I would still love you as my brother,” he said and Loki could not help the small laugh that sputtered from his twisted mouth. Thor chuckled too, knowing it was safe to do so if Loki had found it funny and soon the two were giggling away in each other’s arms. The warrior god could weep for joy as for the first time in many years, even since before his own exile to Midgard, Loki did not feel rigid and awkward in his embrace and they held each other tightly.

 “There is something I want you to know, Loki,” said Thor, breaking their embrace and taking a step back so he could address his brother properly for the sombre words he was about to say. “Odin was angry at you not just for the things you did, but for the divide that sprang up between him and I. I never agreed with his punishment for you and I protested vigorously and publicly, saying that the Ordeal he had devised was monstrous and brutal beyond reason. I did not see how he could justify the killing of my nephews in this matter. He had the excuse that they were being punished for their own crimes independent of you, but…” he trailed off as he found himself lost for words and knew there was no point in extending that painful sentence if Loki knew what he was trying to say.

 “As a prince of Asgard I was expected to participate in the punishment. I hated every second of it, but I couldn’t run from you, even if …” his words failed him again, but Loki put a shaky hand on his arm to silence him.

 “I understand, I think,” he said. He had always known what Thor was thinking when his words failed him, and that connection was suddenly bringing him far more comfort than he ever thought it would again. Odin had sent him to his punishment, but really, he might have sent Loki to his redemption. Perhaps there was something about Midgard which seemed to make everyone more honest and open with each other, or opened up possibilities for healing that seemed closed off and impossible in other realms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting. I had to go back and carefully re-write sections of this first section to make sure it tied up with later instalments and chapters. Thanks once more to pensievefighter my lovely beta :) Please let me know what you thought. I know this chapter does seem to have some excess fluff, but there is so much that I wanted to just get out of the way in regards to these two otherwise the story could be postponed for so long while they stubborn it out. Hope it isn't a cop-out!


	8. Giants in New York!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is given time to mourn the loss of his sons, but this is interrupted when a portal opens and two uninvited guests to earth fall out of the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies seem meaningless given it has been so long since updates. Have the full rest of story. Two other parts are complete and will be put up at some point. Special thanks to Marhouge327 who made me get off my ass and get this published.

When the other Avengers had finally all come together in the privacy of the tower, an impassioned plea by Thor and a convincing vouch from Tony later, the other Avengers had agreed to keep Loki’s arrival under their collective hat for now. Even Tasha’s face had soured as Thor told them what had been done to Loki’s children and how the bodies had been used to torture their father. In light of this, and Loki’s very different demeanour, they agreed that he could have a mourning period before they told Shield. Despite his heart-to-heart with Thor some days earlier, it had not lifted Loki out of his depression completely; he had made peace with his brother, but it would take longer to come to terms with the loss of his sons and his hand in their brutal execution. He had taken to sitting by the window again and staring out into the sky, sometimes looking, sometimes lost in his thoughts, but almost always in silence. The Avengers all had a good gawk at his scarring face, the acid burns from the venom now not as red and raw as they had been on the day of his arrival and beginning to heal over, with some irritation and itchy scabbing that was distinctly unattractive. His mouth was taking longer to heal, the punctures would often tear if he moved his lips too much, like how they had been bleeding by the end of his enlightening talk with Thor, and he knew he had to keep his mouth shut some more in order to mend. It seems Odin’s punishment was lasting beyond its end and Loki quietly seethed about it when he was not grieving for Vali and Narfi.

Most of the others in the tower watched him, this he knew, and some with more interest than others. Curiously, some endeavoured to show him compassion by trying to engage him in conversation, sometimes offered him food or drink. Rogers, the Adonis of a man in the red, white and blue, often brought him portions of the meal he had made in the evenings and always had a word to say, even if more times than not Loki would not reply. Banner was a very interesting man. He knew he had relatively little to fear from Loki in terms of physical harm, and despite how the god had sought to use the shape-changing mortal for his own ends, Banner would often come over to the window where Loki stayed. He usually did not offer many words or try to engage the trickster in much conversation, he knew that there weren’t really any useful words for times like these, but instead he simply sat next to Loki and stared out the window with him, engrossed in his own thoughts and leaving the other to his own. It was the closest thing to companionship he was likely to get and it was a generous helping at that, compared to what he had been expecting.

Unsurprisingly Romanov and Barton had stayed away from him, not willing to engage with him in any measure as the others had done. Considering he took the bow-master’s mind for such a joyride the last time they had met he supposed it was a huge step for Barton to be in the same room without trying to shoot him. Tasha had stayed away for two reasons, the more sentimental of the two being that she did so out of solidarity with Hawkeye and the other, far more pragmatic reason, was that she had no reason to go near him. The very few times she was called to keep an eye on him because one of the others had to leave the room, he always sat staring out of the window, barely even registering the comings and goings of his one-time enemies.

It had been possibly two weeks out of the three they had agreed to give Loki to mourn his children and heal from his torture when his habit of sitting stock still by the window changed. Uncertainly, but with admirable stability, he got to his feet, his sharp eyes fixed on a point in the sky. His movement attracted the attention of Steve and Tasha who were in the room and his focus upon whatever it was he had spotted made them put aside their respective projects and get to their feet too. Steve eyed Tasha warily and she moved closer to the door, ready to make a run for it to Thor in case Loki had decided now was the time to make his escape (which she highly doubted, but caution was a good reason she was still alive). Steve walked carefully and slowly over to the god, who was scowling and thinking very hard at what appeared to be a cloud.

“What’s the matter? That cloud looking at you funny?” Steve asked, making light as a way of alleviating the tension Loki’s alarm had provoked. Loki scowled at the flippant comment, but did not take his eyes off the sky.

“What is that?!” Steve exclaimed as he followed Loki’s gaze up to the sky. The Captain’s reaction was enough to get Tasha on her feet and staring out the window.

“Woah… I saw something like that in the Shield footage of the bifrost,” Tasha said, quickly making connections.

“It is a similar process, someone is about to come through a portal,” Loki said, his voice low and his face pale. He could only imagine that regardless of who was likely to come through the hole in the sky it would be bad news for him; maybe some Asgardian stooges come to enact Odin’s command to turn on his frail word.

“Stark! Suit up and get to the platform now!” Tasha commanded urgently through the comm link on her ear and she shifted her weight, identifying where her weapons were, if she had any spare ammo and the types of combat she could engage in with her present equipment if the situation called for it.

“I knew you’d come round one day Romanov, you know it’s ok to dig me in the suit, should I bring champagne or-“

“Stark!” she shouted down the link, her nerve frayed by Loki's continued presence. The three in the room piled towards the door which would take them outside and Tasha could hear the powerful whirring of the suit coming to life in the floors below, her uncharacteristic response firing alarm bells off in him; at his side was Thor who was being flung to the platform by the might of Mjollnir held steadily in his hand.

“Loki!” Thor called out to his brother, checking first the location and situation of his beloved sibling before turning his attention to danger.

“This cannot be a bifrost portal,” Loki said to Thor.

The sky, which before had been a pale, delicate blue, had clouded over with icy grey tufts of cumulus in a very specific area, directly over the tower and the city as a whole; the usual blue sky could be seen in the short distance, the sun pouring happily over the sharp edge of the cloud bank. The centre of the slowly churning clouds was becoming more pinched and distorted in a way that could not possibly be a weather phenomenon. Now they were outside, a strange smell was coming from the dense formation in the sky, a bitter, raw scent of sharp ice and unkind winds that had ravaged tundra upon tundra of a wasteland. In fact, it was familiar one, a smell that reminded him of a trip to the land of frost which had set woe in his heart…

“Jotuns!” he cried, alerting those around him as to what was coming through. Thor roared and spun the mighty hammer of the stars around in his hand, raised and ready to come crushing upon the skulls of the warmongering invaders.

As he said the word, the sky split open, an unstable rip in the air tore apart and spat out two large blue figures. Both were hurtling through the air at alarming speed and seemed to be heading straight for the landing platform. Loki had a second to observe that they were not the usual thick-headed head-shaven grunts they had faced in Gastropnir when Thor was spoiling for battle, they both had hair, one black and the other white, but both covered in the jagged sacral patterns of the full-blooded Jotuns. Then the thunderer was in the air, Mjollnir swinging upwards to intercept the intruders to Midgard, roaring a battle cry to get his blood thumping through his body and make him strong and alert for battle.

“I take it diplomacy is a no-no then?” Stark asked , his voice distorted by the helmet.

“Jotuns are not known for their willingness to co-operate around the table, no,” Loki replied, watching as Thor was close to contact with the dark-haired giant and as he brought his hammer crashing down, it went right through the body of the falling Jotun and Thor went stumbling off into the air, surprised that he had been tricked so.

“At least one of them knows magic!” Loki hissed and snarled, his fury at the binding runes on his body renewed as it made him vulnerable one more.

“Gotcha,” Stark said and took to the air, far more nimbly and ably than Thor’s wide-arc and sometimes clumsy flight habits.

“Where is the other one?” Tasha asked, her eyes raking the half of the sky that Clint’s weren’t already detailing. A crash answered their question on the roof, the level above the platform where they were at the moment. The group left on the platform immediately took to their heels and dashed inside towards the staircase.

“I need a weapon!” Loki said as they ran.

“Not gonna happen!” Steve said in his typical stubborn tone.

“How do you expect me to fight those things then?” he demanded angrily as they began bounding up the stairs two or three at a time.

“I don’t!” Steve replied, Loki scowled, not really sure why the Captain wouldn’t want someone fighting with them who was experienced in combat with the frost giants.

“Just don’t let them touch you, they will freeze you to death,” he said, deciding that if he could not fight, he could at least give them the information they needed to fight for him. He would be damned if he was going back with these giants if he was who they had come for and he would not be surprised at all if that was the case, after all, he did drill a huge hole in the middle of their planet and try to destroy it.

When they got to the roof they saw that only one figure had crashed into the concrete, the white haired giant who was slumped over, weakened and trying unsuccessfully to stand. There was a bundle in its arms, something swathed in cloth and clearly precious to the battered Jotun who took a few seconds to even realise that half the team where on the roof with them. The black-haired one was clearly the fighter and less injured than its companion and was currently giving Thor and Iron Man the run-around on the roofs of the surrounding sky-scrapers. He did not appear to be dealing much damage and was far more concerned with getting away that he was about fighting which was a curiosity in and of itself.

“You there!” Steve barked, his shield (grabbed hastily on the way up) raised and expecting a very chilly fight. “State your name and why you’re here!” The soldier in him had awoken and taken over the otherwise gentle and polite Steve Rogers. Loki could hear the laboured breathing of the wounded giant who was trying very desperately to stand. He stumbled cautiously and the four of them made to approach him.

“Let me go first, its touch cannot harm me,” Loki murmured and stepped out in front of the others who, while not comfortable with arming him, were more than fine to let him go first. He couldn’t find the time or energy to be the littlest bitter about this as he assessed the situation before him and tried to block out the possible outcomes to approaching the giant.

“Jotun!” Loki said clearly to get the intruder’s attention and he looked up, meeting Loki’s hateful eyes as the trickster surveyed what he could have been. The eyes that he met with were deep red, the crimson of dark spilled blood. The object in the cloth fell out and a burst of intense blue light came howling out of it, hurling ice forwards, encasing the three avengers behind him, and even the path of one of Barton’s arrows. Loki knew exactly what that object had to be, there was only one thing that was capable of such a thing; the Casket of Ancient Winters, that which confirmed to him his monstrous heritage, a pathetic example of which was struggling to put back in its cloth holder.

He looked down at his body, having felt his skin squirm and change under the cold of the very specific ice that had come blasting out and knew his slippery skin was reacting in sections to the magic and light of Jotunheim’s relic.

“I don’t want to fight,” the unidentified giant rasped, his voice as strained as his body.

“Then what a pity you crossed paths with me,” Loki snarled and raised his fist and struck the giant with a powerful blow which sent it flying to the other end of the rooftop. Before he could advance upon his prey, however, Loki took a flying Iron Man to the gut and struggled with the immobile form of Tony Stark who was wailing something about his systems from inside the gaudily-painted armour. Thor was nowhere to be seen and anger welled up again in Loki, transforming his hatred of Jotuns in general to fiery rage at their audacity to harm his brother and bring trouble in the midst of his mourning. He launched at the black-haired one who had descended to the roof to follow Stark and dodged a blow by a meaty hand, digging his own fist into the giant’s side. It staggered and grunted with pain.

“You’re going to wish you hadn’t done that!” the Jotun declared and charged, seeing through Loki’s feint and grabbing a smaller, blue arm and trying to wrestle the prince to his knees, but Loki refused to bend knee before anyone, let alone a creature of this lowly kind and used his position near the floor to flip the beast over the top of him and into the side of the wall that otherwise stopped people from falling off the edge of the building. The giant tumbled and grunted in pain when his arm was pushed in an uncomfortable position as he rolled, but he came to a stop near the paler giant who was looking up. There was a mist about his hands and Loki recognised the sweet smell of seidr as it formed up into the fingertips of the Jotun with the casket.

“No!” he screamed in frustration as the two giants simply seemed to blink out of existence. With no magic of his own to use, he could not track them and it frustrated him greatly.

“Why didn’t you let me back with at least some of my magic you stupid old fool?!” Loki yelled at the sky, kicking the ground and swelling in frustration as he realised he was reduced to the level of Thor with a cold – a bit of strength and not much else. He was of no use, and that is not to even mention his feeling of loss of the connection with the greater energies and flows of the universe.

“Jarvis, I thought we solved the icing problem?!” Tony shouted at his non-responsive suit, the whirring of his mechanical armour sounding rather pathetic as he slowly picked himself up off the ground.

“God…I feel worse than when I went three rounds with Thor,” he groaned to himself.

“The Jotuns kept the might of Asgard at bay for years, Odin only won the war through a trick, not through a decisive military victory,” Loki told him as he went over to survey the three frozen avengers.

“Oh shit…” Tony gasped as he saw the blast of thick ice and the people encased inside. “Please tell me…” he started, but was unable to finish, his face drawn and going grey.


	9. Capsicle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the brief tussle with the two ice giants; and Loki repays the favours offered to him in the form of silence, companionship, and compassion.

They’re not dead,” Loki supplied, examining the ice very closely, touching it with his pink hands and watching them turn blue again as his birth skin reacted with the magic of his people.

“They’re frozen in three inches of ice, how are they not dead?” Tony asked, his words punctuated by sounds of dead metal falling heavily to the ground as he shed his armour, the whole suit useless and fit only for scrap.

“They should be, I’ll give you that,” Loki replied, rather unhelpfully. Tony eyed the trickster god curiously as he went about his investigation. Tony felt as though this should perhaps give Loki some grim pleasure, the thought of his enemies dead or at least incapacitated, but in a way that Tony was not really quite comfortable with, Loki had grown to be a part of them for the last two weeks and he cursed himself for how easily he got used to the mostly-silent god’s presence. There was an element of sympathy for the visitor and there was Tony’s willingness to show compassion to make himself feel better (or at least repay a little more of the debt he felt he owed to the universe).

“However, that giant did not summon normal ice from the Casket, this is a magical substance,” Loki remarked, thinking aloud. “This ice is a preservative, I can feel they are still alive in there.”

“Should I bring up some heaters, start melting this lot down?” Stark asked.

“No, it would take the heat of Musspellheim to melt this sort of ice, this is from the Casket itself. However, I should be able to crack it. The Casket clearly responds to Jotuns so I can make it respond to me.” He balled his fist and hammered a blow on the edge of the ice field to test the density of the ice. It cracked and splintered under his touch and it filled him with the confidence that he should be able to extract the frozen Steve, Tasha and Clint from their preservative prison.

"Why are you helping?" Tony said, not being able to help himself. For all the sympathies shown over the last couple of weeks, Tony was still aware of Loki's status as their enemy. Loki paused his investigations and turned his face to Tony, the light catching unflatteringly on his new, twisted features. The master of the tower was struck by the clarity of the rivulets that ran so clearly down the god's face, like a river's delta, how it mottled his ear, and had scarred the hairline enough that he had lost a little of his hair on that side. A surge of complicated feelings took Tony by surprise; an incredibly rare feeling of meeting someone who understood what it was like to be taken against your will, held in a dark and frightening cave while they mutilated you and bent you to their own terrible ends. Without realising it, his hand had come up to the reactor sitting quietly in his chest, and rubbed gently at the scarring around its casing. 

"You are all that stands between me and a grim fate," he said archly, sounding offended that Tony was questioning his motives, even though Loki knew the Iron Man had every right to. 

"Oh really?" Tony said, his attempt at a sassy comeback lacking bite. Loki turned back to his work on the ice bank.

"Also, you have allowed me my grief, you have given me dignity. Which is more than I can say for the golden good of Asgard," he said more quietly, adding a hissing venom to his voice when speaking of his former countrymen. "And more than I expect from your governments when I am handed over." The flatness of his tone at the last comment gave Tony any uncomfortable sense of being piggy in the middle. 

“I don’t supposed there’s anything I can do to help, is there?”

“Stay away.” Loki replied shortly. Stark thought about taking offence to the bluntness with which the order was issued, but he was too tired and it looked like the sensible thing to do anyway as shards of ice kept flying out from Loki’s surgical strikes at the long cracks he was making in the ice.

“So if this stuff is meant to preserve people, does that mean those giants didn’t want to kill us at all? Because the guy Thor and I were trying to whale on seemed more interested with getting away than standing up and fighting. Pissed Thor right off.” While he had agreed to stay away, he couldn't stop his mouth from starting up again.

Normally such a remark might have made Loki give a half-smile at the thought of something getting the better of the mighty thunderer, but Stark had a point, those giants made no killing blows. The fight was fast and defensive on their part. The white-haired one could easily have employed the Casket to wipe them all out, given their clear ability to summon more complex structures from the magical relic.

“I suppose the next question is can we get them out?”

“Of course I can, I just need a little time to discern if a certain method will crack them in two or not.”

“You mean brute force?”

“Something I’m sure you’re familiar with,” Loki said dryly and touched the surface of the cracked and chipped ice which was gleaming in the sunlight as it broke through the dissipating clouds. He examined his hand, it was not wet, so the ice was not really ice at all but purely a magical construct; this meant that as long as the intent was clear when breaking it the three people inside should not suffer any damage, or not much at least. The cracks that he had made were doing as he had hypothesised and it made him more confident to continue with breaking the ice with strength alone.

“Brother!” Thor cried as he landed next to them rather clumsily. He had a nasty bruise growing over his left cheek and his dominant arm was ice burned, dark and painful blue, meaning he had to wield Mjollnir in his off-hand.

“Wait,” Loki commanded in a quiet voice as he was concentrating far too much to really think about his response to Thor. He struck the ice with a closed fist on a part of the over flow that was not directly over the frozen Avengers; ice turning to powder as he smashed it, the flying shards turning to dust in the air within a few seconds of being separate.

Loki clasped both hands together and brought them crashing down in a powerful blow that shook the top of the building a little, his skin now entirely blue and eyes the red of the giants, and the whole ice bank shattered, spitting out in all directions and turning to dust in the air which was carried away easily by the winds at the top of the tower. This action freed the trapped Avengers and it took them a moment or two to move again as their bodies were rid of the magic. Instantly Tasha and Clint dropped to the ground hugging themselves and shaking violently with chill; while the magic was a preservative, it was still damn cold and the sharp wind on the roof was not helping.

“Jarvis, fill the hot tub,” Tony said to his omnipresent computer, and while his armour did not respond, a panel on a wall of the tower did. Steve, while obviously cold, looked rather shell-shocked and a little afraid. It didn't take the full capacity of Stark's genius to figure out what had induced such anxiety and panic.

“Don’t worry cap, it was only for a few minutes this time. You missed the fight, nothing else,” Tony said and waved a hand in front of the eyes of the capsicle. Steve met Tony’s eyes with a strange expression, half afraid for the time he could have missed again, and half grateful for Stark being the anchor to the world, again. “Loki, what can be done for these giant burns?” Thor asked, presenting his injured arm. Loki was reminded of the numerous times in childhood when Thor had got himself into a scrape, or somehow injured himself and always went to his younger knowledgeable brother to either make it feel better or apply some treatment that would deal with it for now. The number of times Loki had splinted his sibling’s injuries or applied salves to magical burns on Thor was incalculable and he somewhat envied Thor’s ability to just go back to how they used to be without being burdened with the past of what had happened between them.

“The best treatment for this on Asgard was simply a tepid press, but I wonder if I can do better now I have more knowledge…” he speculated aloud and held his hand over the wound. He was still in Jotunish form and he could tell from the slight flinch that Thor wondered if this was not going to just make the burn worse, but he reinforced his trust in the other and held his arm steady. Loki put his hand just over the wound, barely touching it and wondered if Odin’s spell would let him use the tiniest splinter of magic it took for this to work; the burn appeared to literally lift off of Thor’s skin in small increments and was absorbed into the same place on Loki’s own arm, though the freezeburn had very little effect on the frost giant’s skin. It looked a little mottled, but more like an irritation or light rash than a burn. Perhaps it was allowed because it was magic to help Thor and the smallest amount that could be put to so little other use, or the omnipotent gaze of the king that let it through.

“Thank you,” Thor said, his sincerity almost painful to the ear.

“That has to be the first time you have thanked me for seeing to your injuries,” Loki said with some humour.

At this point, Steve helped Tasha to her feet and Tony put an arm around Barton and they were helped to the door at the end of the roof to get to the lower levels where Jarvis said the tub was ready.

“Hot tub?” Tasha growled at Stark as she trudged forwards, shaking considerably.

“It’s the only tub in the tower that will fit you guys, I figured it would be easier. And it fills the quickest,” Tony said in defence of his honour. “I promise we’re not going to perv,” he said with a dramatic eyeroll that Tasha just thinned her eyes at in suspicion.

“Just know that if you do, you have better hope Steve kills you before I get to you,” she said, referring to the captain’s indisputable honour in these situations. They bickered as they went into the tower, Stark protesting his innocence and the other three shooting him down rather mercilessly. This left Loki and Thor on the roof, looking to the sky and the few remnants of the Casket’s wintery portal fading away into the cheery blue.

“Loki,” said Thor, wanting to break the silence and say some more things in his heart. One of the many things that had occurred to him when he was searching for answers as to why Loki had come to hate him so was that he had never shown appreciation for his sibling, nor revealed the true awe and pride he had for Loki’s considerable talents. He had always derided the ways of magic as being an easy alternative to the art of combat, but he done this often in jest and more often in jealousy, as it appeared to be, in fact, more disciplined and far more difficult than anything else Thor had tried. Loki was able to perform raw magic, to simply pluck the magic out of thin air, a feat Thor had never even contemplated as the most seidr he was able to utilise was through the might of Mjollnir, his hammer performed the magic for him, his own touch was far too clumsy and he had no talent for the skill. Still, it was difficult to admit that someone else was better at him at a form of fighting, and even more to begin to repair the damage he had done to their relationship, but he knew he had to be the one to make the first step and this was perhaps a greater act of courage than charging into battle against a pack of bilgesnipe.

“It was good to fight with you instead of against you. I never thought I would miss it, but I do,” he said. Their eyes didn’t quite meet, but there was a definite moment shared before they both headed for the door in an awkward and slightly embarrassed silence. Thor was, however, heartened by Loki accepting this honest confession with grace and no vitriolic rebuke; it was a signal of progress and Thor could live with that for now, he would wait for Loki.


	10. In Disguise to the Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Other-worldy visitors abound as Sigyn and her travelling companion make their way to visit the Avengers and their guest - with a grizzly all-access pass.

After the frozen Avengers had warmed up and consumed much hot drink and food, at Loki’s advice, they wrapped themselves in Tony’s premium fluffy dressing gowns and sat in front of the window of the tower which had turned into a vast bank of screens.  

“Jarvis, scan all TV channels, news networks and social media sites; there are two huge blue giants who freeze people into blocks of solid ice, someone out there has GOT to have seen them,” Tony ordered his AI and put the coffee machine on to grind some special Columbian import as he had been told that he was not allowed to break out the scotch at this time of day. The others got to watching the screens that Jarvis brought up as it began searching the city’s cameras and Loki slipped out of the front room to the quarters that had been assigned to him at the beginning of his stay. It was small and undecorated, but he was not meant to stay and he would prefer to keep them as temporary as they truly were. He sat on the small stool at the vanity and turned on the light that shined on his face and allowed him to see his skin more clearly.   

He peered into the reflective glass and studied the marks that had endured on his Aesir skin where the slashes of swords, daggers and rough and tumble had not. The shallow rivers of burns across his face were concentrated predominantly on the right side, that being the only comfortable way his head could lay against the uneven and sharp rock to which he was chained. They ran down his face and around the sides, scarring a little of his hairline around his ear and nape as well as some mottling on the ear lobe. He gently probed the scarring with a cool finger, partly out of curiosity and partly to test the progress of the healing process by the reaction of the skin and the amount of pain provoked by the action. He was fascinated in many ways by the injuries as no other mark had endured for as long as these had, and Loki was realistic about this and unsurprised.   

Narfi’s venom had always been cruel to its victims, but the nature of the desecrated bond of father and son was always going to cut him deeper than anyone else it had ever been used on. He sighed as he eyed the red rivers that ran down his face, resigning himself to the fact that almost all of the marks would scar him permanently and the pale, clean visage he had been celebrated for in the halls and taverns of Asgard, was lost to him forever.   

There was a shy knock at his door and Loki got up quickly from the mirror, trying to put distance between himself and the glass before Thor entered the room, attending to his duty not only to the care of his brother, but also his promise to his Midgardian friends to remain Loki’s close keeper for the moment.  

“I am sorry to interrupt,” he said and Loki internally cursed himself for having been too slow so as to let Thor see what he was doing. The trickster nodded in acknowledgement and at the same time expressed his direct wish not to talk about it. “They are using the mechanical eyes of Midgard to look for the frost giants,” Thor said to break the silence.   

“The one with the casket,” Loki rasped. “Is adept at magic. If they do not want to be found I doubt they will be.” His tone was morose and pessimistic. Thor frowned. “But it is prudent to look,” Loki conceded as a way of placating Thor, as he really did not want one of the prince’s awkward attempt at a counselor’s session.  

“What could frost giants want with Midgard? They could not be looking for the tesseract, surely?”  

“No. They have got the Casket of Ancient Winters, they have no need for the tesseract. There are two more pressing questions here.” He paused and took a sip from the bottle of water kept always now by his bed. Thor waited patiently for his brother to drink, as Loki had shown a profound dislike for Thor cutting in when Loki’s voice was failing him. “First you must ask how they obtained the Casket, as it was secured in the vault of the palace in Asgard and guarded jealously by Odin.” Thor had learned to let Loki’s insults to the Allfather slide by now. “And the second is why none of your mortal friends are dead. The giant who held the Casket took special pains to encase them in non-lethal ice. It is surely much easier to conjure normal ice that would kill most Midgardians, but this was a specific use of the Casket. Also, the giant who had your attention appeared to want to get away more than to fight you, son of their enemy.”   

“You should tell this to our friends this, up in the main room,” Thor said. Loki couldn’t help his mind as it knew Thor’s genuine desire to integrate his brother and his friends, but the darker part whispered how Thor was bored of watching over Loki and in the main room he could occupy himself rather than watch the trickster stare out of a window for the better part of the day. He chased the thoughts away and tried, instead, to focus on the enigma at hand.  

“They would be more comfortable if I stayed here.”  

“That is untrue.”  

“Thor, don’t be so naïve to think that after what I did to their city and tried to do to their world that they would honestly prefer my company as to having me hidden away?”  

“Loki, has their kindness and compassion not got through to you? Theirs are not acts of insincerity,” he said, and Loki remained mute. Thor took this that his brother was possibly conceding the point otherwise he fancied the trickster would be pressing the issue.   

  

##  

  

"When you said we were going to make an obvious entrance to Midgard, I didn't think you meant appearing right over the top of their steel fortress and into Thor's face," Svali grumbled as he adjusted the leather jacket his mother had given him to put over the top of his other clothes. "And are all these garments necessary? This seems a rather over-zealous method of covering one's extremities."  

    
"You are too pragmatic some times," Sigyn sighed and pulled the jacket sharply over him to sit properly. "And clothing on Midgard is less about practicality and more about fashion. We need to blend in unless you want to get into a fight with your Uncle Thor again." Svali rolled his eyes petulantly and looked again at himself in the mirror.    
   
"What do you think of this form?" he asked, trying for the umpteenth time to flatten an errant curl under his ear.     
   
"I think you've done an admirable job of it. Not a hint of blue in sight," she said proudly, and swatted his hand away from his hair. Svali was no longer the frost giant that he had been when he had been thrown into this world, his mother's control of the newly-acquired Casket still rather shaky. It had taken some time to shift into human form, but his mother had guided him through the process to speed things up a little. He was now at least a foot shorter, his muscle and bulk reduced to a lithe form and the sacral markings that told of his distinguished lineage had sunk into his skin and were no longer visible. His facial features had softened, there was no longer a sharp chin or cheekbones defining his silhouette, though still somewhat prominent compared to the handful of humans he could see walking past the window of the small room they were hiding in. There were two parts of him that still surprised him the most; his skin and his eyes. As a frost giant he did not have the great sensitivity to sensation in his skin as he did in human form, his ebony hair fell to just below his ear and curled at the ends, proving sufficiently annoying as they tickled him; a very foreign sensation. The other thing he had not seen for some time was his eye colour in other skins, his natural form held deep, dark crimson eyes, but here he seemed to manifest extremely pale grey eyes, a colour that looked so gentle compared to the harsh red of his normal ones.  

    
"Do I look like Sire?" Svali asked, tugging at his hair again. Sigyn smiled and shooed away his hand again.    
   
"Didn't you see him when we landed at the tower?"    
   
"No, Prince Thor was the more immediate issue," he said, a little disappointed and his hand went up to his hair again. This time Sigyn grabbed his wrist and put a large elastic band around it.    
   
"Play with that when you want to fiddle with your hair. It will take some time to get used to and you will only make it worse if you mess around with it." He scowled and wrapped the band around his fingers and plucked the rubber.     
   
"What did he say when he saw you? I'm guessing he wasn't too pleased," Svali asked. Sigyn's eyes shifted to the floor for a long moment and then returned to lacing up her boots.     
   
"He didn't recognise me." The sadness in her voice put an end to that line of enquiry.    
   
"Bearer," Svali began, turning to face Sigyn, his face creased with anxiety. "How are we supposed to do this? Asgard was falling down around us when we left, we barely escaped with the Casket. I'm pretty sure the Destroyer was in pieces by the time you conjured the portal."    
   
"We certainly cannot do it on our own. We need to inform the nine realms what is happening because then they will be able to make a decision about what to do about it."    
   
"I know you better than that, Bearer," Svali said, slightly insulted that she was not telling him her plan. "You know how this is going to play out, you have a plan. You always do."    
   
"I have several, but everything hinges on the reaction of your Sire. If your Sire agrees, then Jotunheim will have a ruler again and we can rebuild our world, back to the strength we were once feared for, but if not then I will need to ask Skadi about how the giants would feel about the re-instatement of my line."    
   
"You would become Sovereign?" Svali was confused, as Sigyn had refused to take any part in Jotunheim's affairs, even if they both kept an eye from the distance.    
   
"No, I was exiled, I can't ask to put myself on the throne, that goes against the reason I was exiled in the first place. No, I think you should take your Sire's mantle."    
   
"What?!" Svali spluttered and took a shocked step away from Sigyn, who looked so calm about the whole thing.    
   
"If your Sire effectively abdicates, you will be next in line, but because you are my blood as well, we will need to check if you are still eligible. I suppose in theory it was never supposed to happen, the mixing of current royal blood and exiled royal blood, but nonetheless, that is the situation we have."    
   
"Even supposing such a thing comes to pass and I am made Sovereign, you may well still be exiled, you may not be able to return." His expression was intense and hesitant and Sigyn looked grave.    
   
"I know."    
   
"You want me to rule on my own?" He knew the dangers of rule in Jotunheim, he had been made very aware of how any giant could challenge their ruler for the throne in the arena of combat.    
   
"You are strong, far more so than you think."    
   
"I'm barely four hundred years old!"    
   
"A young Sovereign yes, but that does not make you ineligible. You would have allies around too; Skadi would be there to support you and the Hunter of Jotunheim is a powerful friend." She stood and took his soft pink hands in her own, stroking the back of the hand in a calming and tender gesture.    
   
"You would make a good Sovereign if fate demanded it of you. But we still have a chance to gain more allies. We need to tell Prince Thor what has happened on Asgard, and stop him from rushing back. One thing at a time, child." He nodded and reached for the leather pouch on the dusty table that had made do as their vanity while they assumed Midgardian form. It was the benefit of being a Slip Skin, and born to two parents who were some of the most accomplished shapeshifters in the last few millennia. Sigyn eyed the pouch warily, she found its contents deeply unpleasant and her mouth was set in a grim line. She had had no love for Odin, and had held nothing but contempt for the foolish old king, but she had to acknowledge that one of their most powerful allies against the incoming horror was gone. What disturbed her the most was how quickly Odin was taken apart, and what that could mean for their efforts to preserve themselves. Her thoughts spiralled darkly and very quickly and she ended up having to take her own advice and focus on one thing at a time for now.    
   
"Let's go," she said and removed the chair from underneath the door handle to let them out. They slipped out of the building, through the grimy alley and into the main street, out into the bustling crowds who were pounding the concrete beneath their feet to get hurriedly to their hundreds of different destinations.     
   
"I wish you had let me live here with you these past few decades," Svali griped as Sigyn led them into a detour to use an ATM machine to draw out cash.    
   
"Don't be ridiculous, this place is far too quaint for you. There are too many rules to living here that you couldn't cope with."    
   
"But this is a fascinating place, none of the other realms are like this place. Just look how busy it is!" He grinned like a child as he surveyed the hundreds of people around, distinguishing the different gender and ethnic and cultural groups, boggling at the number of distinctions he saw.     
   
"Don't complain, you got to spend time in Musspellheim, I'm very jealous. It's one of the two realms I haven't really explored."    
   
"You could have come with me." He pouted, still bearing something of a grudge since his bearer had pretty much just dropped him off at a friend of a friend's place in Musspellheim and said 'see you later' before leaving.     
   
"You needed time to grow without me. It did you good to learn without worrying about what your bearer would think." Svali said nothing, not quite believing that, but instead watched with fascination as the machine whirred and spat out sheaves of printed paper.    
   
"Currency?" he asked, recognising the paper type from the letters Sigyn had sent him while she was on Midgard.    
   
"For this part of the world, yes. We will need it for transport to the tower. You will get to see a little of this city, after all," she said with a smile and throwing her plaited white-blonde hair behind her shoulder as it was now getting in her way.  

 

##  
   
   
   
"Here we are, the 'steel fortress'," Sigyn smirked as they looked up the dizzying height of the tower. "This is The Avengers Tower, formerly Stark Tower," she said.     
   
"There was nothing like this on Musspellheim!" Svali said as he gaped.    
   
"That's because there is nothing ON Musspellheim," she replied with amusement.    
   
"You know what I mean," he grumbled in return and Sigyn shook her head. "Come, let's go inside while I still have the courage to do this," she said and pushed the large glass doors open to the tower. She approached the receptionist behind the desk in the otherwise quiet foyer.    
   
"Good afternoon, ma'am, welcome to Avengers Tower. How can I help you?" The receptionist was young and pretty, something Sigyn had no trouble believing of Tony Stark who always surrounded himself with pretty things.    
   
"I need to see Prince Thor of the Thunders, I know he is here," she said. The receptionist sighed through her increasingly fake smile.     
   
"I'm afraid I can't let you go up to the top levels, but if you would like to see other parts of the tower, guided tours start at 2pm and..."    
   
"Tell him that I must meet with him," she said and summoned from the thin air with a golden shimmer of light, the leather pouch Svali had earlier. She opened it and gently rolled out the contents. The receptionist screamed shrilly and Svali started, spinning round from where he had been looking around the chrome and glass hall. She slammed a button on the side which was meant to be a panic button, but with a flick of Sigyn's fingers the button jammed, not working.     
   
"Tell Thor of the Thunders that Sigyn Shimmerhand is here to speak with him," she said in a forceful voice, one that Svali could tell had some small amount of magic behind it to encourage the woman to pick up the 'Up-upstairs' phone. Shakily, without taking her horrified stare from the eye now looking at her with a piercing gaze, she picked up the phone and the line went straight through the Jarvis on the top floors.    
   
"Jarvis, could you have a look at the cameras and let Th...Thor know that someone is...is here to see him," she squeaked.    
   
"Certainly, Miss Rossini," the ever-calm voice of the computer of the tower. Sigyn waved her hand quickly and hid the eye from view, returning it to the hidden place of her magic. There was a short wait of a minute or two. The brass elevator in the centre of the far bank of lift machines slid open and a pleasant 'ding' rang from inside the car.     
   
"Please enter the elevator, I will take you up to Mr Odinson," Jarvis' voice chimed politely.    
   
"Thank you," Sigyn said, both to Jarvis and to the terrified receptionist and made for the lift. She stopped when she noticed a distinct lack of a son following.    
   
"Chop chop," she said, watching her son looking up and around for the source of Jarvis' voice, looking rather silly while he did so.    
   
"What?" he asked, even more confused. Sigyn sighed; she had been living on Midgard for far too long if she was using their idioms.    
   
"Hurry up," she translated with a little exasperation. Perhaps she should have let him live here for a while. He jogged after her and watched the lift close the doors on its own and move without even pressing a button.    
   
"Bearer, that voice..."    
   
"There is a bodiless presence here, it is not magical and not malign. It serves the master of this tower, Anthony Stark."    
   
"If it helps, Ms Shimmerhand, I am an artificial intelligence, a sophisticated computer program that was designed to perform complex computing functions while imitating a human personality," Jarvis said, trying to be helpful. Svali did not look as though he entirely understood what was being said to him, but just resolved to get on with it, he would try to understand it later.    
   
"Ms Shimmerhand, I see from reviewing the video footage at the lobby that you are able to perform magic and you clearly know Mr Odinson, but you register on my bioscan as human." There was an unasked question here which hung in the air.    
   
"Both things are true," she said, evasively. The doors slid open before the conversation could continue; obviously the VIP elevator was much faster than the standard lift. Sigyn and Svali were confronted by the assembled Avengers, Thor at the fore, Mjollnir twisting in his hand. None of them looked too impressed.  


	11. The Fall of Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigyn reunites with Loki and introduces him to his youngest son. They bring grim news of Asgard, that the trickster's suffering has been for nothing and everything. A secret, or lie, about Sigyn's past is revealed, leading to the confrontation she desperately wanted to put off for later.

"Prince Thor," Sigyn greeted, stepping out of the elevator and bowing, rather stiffly. Svali did the same. 

"Ok, princess, you want to tell us why you’re scaring my employees with body parts?" Stark said, offishly, the gauntlets from his regular suit on his hands. Sigyn spotted a screwdriver and some other fine tools on a table behind them, he must have been doing some casual repairs when Jarvis alerted them to her presence. 

"It really is you," Thor said, with a frown, he was not glad to see Sigyn and she had a good idea as to why. 

"What did Odin tell you? That I was an infiltrator spy or that I ran away with another man?" she addressed Thor directly and dryly. 

"That you were a spy, coveting my brother's affections for your own gain," Thor growled, he was still tense and probably keen for a fight. 

"Then your father is a liar," she spat and Thor raised his hammer. 

"How dare you speak of him like that!" he roared. 

"Woah, calm down there point break," Stark said and there were at least three pairs of hands on his arms, trying to pull his arm down before massive damage ensued. 

"Why are you here?" Thor demanded, his weapon now down by his side, but still gripped so hard his hand was almost shaking. 

"I have been sent by Odin king and I bring terrible news," she said gravely. Thor's demeanour changed instantly. 

"He sent you?" he asked, rather disbelieving. 

"Yes," she snapped. 

"Who is this?" Bruce asked, pointing at Svali, who was watching the exchange with great interest, and eyeing up Thor with open curiosity. 

"This is Svali, Odin entrusted this to us both," she replied, a little more congenially, but not really taking her eyes of Thor, who it was clear she perceived as a threat. 

"What is going on?" a croaky voice asked and Loki entered the room. The crowd of Avengers instinctively parted and he saw Sigyn, whose expression changed instantly. His face transformed from stiff and pained, to relieved and there was even the hint of a smile stretching his twisted lips.  

"Loki!" she cried jubilantly and rushed over to him before they could stop her. They crashed into an embrace, Loki wrapping his arms tightly around her, inhaling her scent deeply because it made her presence so much more real, it had been so very long. He had known that she was only in the cave with him partially through complex magic, enough to be there to take the venom but not enough to be truly there. His hands gratefully stroked her hair, fingers playing with the braid and worked down her back to squeeze her tight. It had been over four hundred years since he had been able to touch and hold her, until Odin had ripped them apart, but in the glorious moment of their reunion that did not matter. Sigyn could not stop the wide grin on her face and she gripped him tightly, wanting more of the touch that was probably physically possible, wanting the sensation of his real form with her to seep through her skin and into her so she would never forget it again. 

"I take it you two have previous," Clint said, baffled by the scene before him. Loki had never presented as very emotional, even on his less staring-out-of-the-window days, but here the couple practically radiated. Sigyn pressed her lips onto Loki's with a surge of enthusiasm, unable to contain herself and Loki, surprised at how good her cool lips felt against his sore skin, reciprocated with the desire he had retained for her over the centuries of their separation. 

"Loki rescued the Lady Sigyn from a foul beast when we were hunting in Alfheim in our youth," Thor explained, a dark look on his face, but a little brightened by his brother's positive reaction. "He brought her back to Asgard as his intended, but after the first night she vanished and we have not seen her until now." 

"Why did she leave?" 

"Father said she was a spy from Svartalfheim and she fled when she was discovered. He told this to Loki, but my brother did not believe my father." 

"Seems he has good reason not to believe everything Odin tells him," Tasha said and everyone stared at her. "Keeping his actual species from Loki is a huge secret, why wouldn't he keep others?" she justified. 

"Says one of earth's best spies," Tony said, his eyebrows raised. 

"I understand the nature of lies. That's what makes me so good at it," she rebuked and smirked to herself when it seemed to shut Stark up. 

"How did you know I was here?" Loki asked Sigyn after they had finally broken apart.  

"I have so much that I need to tell you, all of you," she said, addressing the Avengers too. "Things are happening in the nine realms and we need to prepare." 

"Yes, I think I know something of it," Thor said, nodding at his own thoughts. "The Jotuns have somehow stolen the Casket of Ancient Winters from my father's vault. They have already used it to come here and attack us. Is Jotunheim preparing for a war?" he asked. Sigyn looked physically pained at Thor's naivety and limited vision. 

"You have a fraction of the facts you need and the wrong conclusion. Jotunheim is not preparing for war, but hopefully it will be soon." 

"You need to explain yourself," Loki said, before Thor could cut in with an inflammatory remark. 

"Before I do, there is one matter that we must deal with first." Sigyn said and extracted herself from Loki's arms. She gestured to Svali, who approached, his eyes glued to and staring at the trickster. He seemed particularly interested with Loki's hair and he touched his own in response, as though trying to reconcile what he saw with what he had inherited. 

"This is Svali Twice-Born," she said simply. Thor frowned in concentration as he tried to recognise the name, but he could think of no one with such an epithet. Loki's face drained and suddenly became white and drawn. 

"What is it?" Thor demanded, wondering who it could be that upset his brother so. Some old enemy? 

"When Sigyn told me, I didn't think I would ever see you," Loki whispered, his voice rasping, but much clearer than it had been for days. Svali looked just as awkward and continued to stare sheepishly at his Sire. "You look...you look very normal," Loki said, with a considerable degree of surprise. 

"Is that not normal?!" Tony asked, butting into the obvious moment they were having.  

All my children have all been..." Loki began, but stalled as he wondered how to put it. 

"Monsters," Sigyn supplied helpfully. "All Slip Skins, so all able to change their shape. One is a wolf, one a serpent, et cetera.," she said.  

"This is a Midgardian skin, Sire," Svali said nervously. 

"Sire?" Rogers raised his eyebrow.  

"Do not forget Loki is still a prince of Asgard," Thor reminded him. Loki looked quite unsure of what to do, he had no idea what to say to his son who had existed for a few hundred years without Loki even knowing and now suddenly just appeared. His eyes were darting all over the different features of the skin, recognising parts of his son that came from him; his hair colour, his face, his clear talent with magic. He could see Sigyn in Svali though, the curling ends of the hair, strong frame and shapely nose. 

In a moment of supreme awkwardness, but tenderness, Loki extended his hand out to his young son. Svali swallowed nervously and offered out his hand, accepting the greeting, gripping each other's forearms until Loki could not help himself and pulled his son into an embrace. Svali squeaked a little, in a way that no one thought possible from his low pitched voice, but eagerly returned the hold.  

Thor stared. Loki cared so little about almost everything, himself included (he had never been one to shy away from a situation in which he might be harmed), and the Thunderer had been concerned in the last few days that perhaps Loki would even try to bring that harm to himself, or at least starve himself as it seemed to be going. The one thing Loki cared about above all other things was his family, which had brought him such joy and misery that Thor found himself envious of his brother's capacity for so much love. The mere sight of his old lover, who he clearly still adored, and his son, despite the suspicious circumstances of their arrival, had been enough to brighten the life of Thor's brother, to make him speak and smile more than he had done since his release from that despicable prison. Loki's initial colour drain at being presented with this boy had been replaced by a healthier hu eand while he was still pale, it was far better than the sickly colour he had been used to for the last few days. 

"It is an honour to meet you, Sire," Svali said as they stepped back and out of the embrace. 

"You are my son, you have no need to call me Sire," Loki said, the first modest thing the Avengers had ever heard him say and their faces told him so. Svali looked nervously to Sigyn who stepped in. 

"We'll get to that later. We have to talk about what is happening." 

"Ah yes, business," Loki said, a little sourly and turned his customary chair in the window towards the others and curled up into it.  

"Yes, do sit down everyone," Stark said sarcastically as he resigned to the fact that this place was not even his own anymore. "Javis, get some coffee brewing," he ordered and flopped down on the sofa end-seat, next to Bruce who was sandwiched between his science buddy and the broad shoulders of Captain America. 

"You were right, Loki. That shadow, it's moved out from the eye of the gilded bull." Loki's look of concentration fell into a deep scowl, disturbed by the implication of her words. 

"And for the rest of us?" Clint demanded to know. 

"When Loki was imprisoned I visited him and we spoke about his actions." 

"Impossible! No one could have gone in and out of that place, the rock at the entrance was only moveable by the Allfather, myself or Tyr the Strong Hand," Thor protested, shamming her words already. 

"Seidr," Sigyn retorted quickly.  

"But the Allfather-" 

"Is not the only adept in the nine realms. I have spent most of my life on Alfheim, I know a lot," she explained, fixing Thor with a stony glare. 

"She went to investigate after what I had told her and found a Chitauri hive," Loki cut in and moved the narrative on. 

"In a fancy piece of livestock?" Stark asked, scepticism all over his face, he hated the talk of magic. 

"The gilded bull is a constellation on the very edge of known space, it lies on the outer branches of Yggdrasil," Sigyn explained. 

"Are more Chitauri coming?" Rogers asked, wanting to keep on track. 

"Yes. The ones you destroyed did constitute a large section of their fleet, but there is a hive of comparable size, if not larger that has made it into the nine realms." 

"What?!" Thor cried, rising from his seat. 

"Sit down, there is so much more to tell and there is worse news yet to come," Sigyn said softly, not having the heart to get too exasperated with him as she reminded herself of the news she bore. Reluctantly Thor re-seated himself and placed Mjollnir on the floor as a sign of piece. 

"It moved?" Loki queried, feeling dread at the realisation that his plan had failed in the end.  

"Yes. You did slow down his progress though. If you hadn't of, we may well have all been sacrificed by now." 

"Will you talk about things in terms we all understand," Tasha demanded in a low voice. "This is obviously going to be our problem as well, so you need to be clear." Sigyn looked over to Loki, asking him with a look if he wanted to explain the context for this conversation. 

"I will need a drink," he said, preparing his voice for a long stint of speaking. Bruce lept to his feet and padded over to the kitchen area, whilst still listening in to make the pot of coffee and a shake for Loki's throat. 

"You know how I fell from the Bifrost?" he questioned and judged that Thor had told them, in some capacity or another, about their tiff for the throne of Asgard by the vague nods. "I did not fall forever. I fell into a pit and it was filled with black miasma that filled my lungs and crept into my skin before I knew what had happened. It fills a person with anger and hatred, the two states of mind in which is the simplest matter to manipulate. The pit was controlled by Chitauri, a filthy, fell race of clones that have polluted themselves by worshipping The Mad Titan, a creature that holds incredible power and devotes himself to the madness of courting his love." 

"His girlfriend is an issue?" Clint asked, skeptically. 

"He has fallen in love with Mistress Death, a personification of the end of life. He believes that if he offers her the lives of the living that she will love him in return and they will rule over all things together." 

"This might sound silly, but is there an actual Mistress Death?" Bruce asked, spooning sugar into the dish. 

"And I thought you were a scientist," Tony said, disappointed and shaking his head.  

"And a couple of years ago you thought Thor was a character in a legend. The universe out there is proving to be very strange, I don't want to dismiss anything out of hand in case it turns out to be important," he defended himself and smirked as Tony scowled and muttered to himself. 

"Not as far as we know," Sigyn said, answering the question. "And this creature has spent the lives of billions in gifts to her, whether she exists or not, so the threat is real enough." 

"The Other, their hive mind, recognised me as being from Asgard and knew it to be a seat of knowledge in our corner of the cosmos. He interrogated me about the tesseract; he had heard about its incredible power and wanted to covet it for himself." Loki paused, and they thought for a moment that his voice was hurting and wanted a break, but it became apparent that it was not that. The pain in his eyes was not one of physical pain, but one of horrid memories. "I was already angry and torn when I fell into oblivion but with the miasma filling me I couldn't help myself. I told him so much, about the tesseract and how I knew how to use it and where it could be found. I told him everything about how I hated Asgard, Midgard and all the persons on them. I told him how much I hated Odin and Thor and wanted to see them suffer for how they had lied and treated me." 

Thor had the tact to look away, but not for too long as this hatchet was beginning to be buried and he was grateful to hear the venom in Loki's words less and there was so little vehemence in there compared to how he had been when Thor reckoned there was no getting through to him.  

"So he gave you the Chitauri army to reclaim the tesseract?" Tasha clarified, keeping her tone even. Loki nodded.  

"I would give him the tesseract and in return he would help me bring ruin to Midgard and Asgard."  

Bruce came over with a tray of cups, a tall caffetiere and a shake for Loki, who gave him a grateful look and took a long sip.  

"As the fleet was assembled, I was taken out of that forsaken pit and kept in a place where the miasma was not as thick and it gave my mind chance to clear a little. I had regretted the deal I made and everything I had told, but I remember the hatred being so strong that I was utterly blinded to everything. I knew I could not go back on the deal we had made, not only would I be dead, but there would be no one to warn you. I couldn't go back, but I could control what happened from there on. I made recommendations as to what kind of units I would need and the size of the force required and they followed what I said. I made the force large enough that they would believe I wanted to scour the Earth, but with more infantry and less leviathans because they are far easier to kill than those armoured whales."  

The group was enraptured by Loki's explanation, slightly leaning forward to hear more and there was utter concentration on their faces as they followed every word said.  

"Woah, woah," Clint said, snapping out of the reverie caused by Loki's fine storytelling, "are you meaning to tell me that you weren't trying to take over the earth with a giant alien army?" His face was the picture of incredulousness.  

"Yes," Loki affirmed with great calm.  

"You could have fooled me," Clint growled and sank back further into his seat. He wasn't sure if he liked this explanation, for two reasons; one because that means he was manipulated and mind-controlled for reasons beyond the simple ones he had been coming to terms with and the second one was that their victory therefore was not all as incredible as they thought it was if Loki planned for them to win. 

"But Loki, you didn't know where the tesseract was, it was lost for hundreds of years before the Midgardians found it, how did you know it was on earth?" Thor asked. Loki looked impressed at his brother's intelligent question. 

"I didn't. The Other knew that it was somewhere in the nine realms and I had to pick which one I had to use in my lie. Midgard became the strategic choice." 

"You could have chosen Asgard and we would have routed them with ease, instead you brought the terror to the mortal world!" Thor protested.  

"Thor, if I said the tesseract was on Asgard do you not think the Other would realise what I was trying to do? If we were to assault Asgard he would expect me to take many, many more Chitauri with me. The same applies to Vanaheim, Alfheim, Musspellheim. I didn't want those bloody dwarves getting their hands on Chitauri technologies and neither you or I want Hel to raise her army, whether it's to crush that wretched hive or not." 

"Jotunheim?" Thor said, his face colder than usual. Sigyn bristled. "You seemed eager to destroy it before." Sigyn turned her head and stared at Loki. Clearly she had not found out about this little gem in his recent history.  

"I had done it too much damage. It would not have been able to repel an attack from Chitauri. If my plan failed and the Other led the rest of his forces personally into the nine realms, then in terms of the potential relative strength of the other realms, Midgard was the expendable one." 

"Thanks, glad to know what you think of us," Stark said, unusually viciously. Bruce stared and nudged him to cool down.  

"From what I do know of your people, you are tenacious and rebel against any kind of domination by a foreign power. I knew you would be able to mount an effective counter attack. I depended on your ability to counter-strike and stop my invasion in order that every last Chitauri would be slaughtered so no one could return to tell the Master." 

"And there was something else you did, you galvanised the Avengers. You made us a team," Bruce said, following Loki's logic clearly. Loki passed a look of appreciation to the doctor. "And you worked very hard to make that happen," he said, continuing his thought train. Loki said nothing in response, but his immodest look told them all that he had, really, manipulated the entire set of events that culminated in his spectacular loss of the battle of New York. 

"You have certainly proved yourself capable, humans," Sigyn said, still rather subdued from the inference earlier of Loki's destruction of Laufey's great fortress, "and worthy to enter the community of the nine realms." Thor nodded energetically in agreement.  

"You said the Eternal One has moved, so I'm going to assume your plan didn't work?" Rogers asked, bringing it all back to why they were here in the first place.  

"The Eternal One must have seen the flash of the tesseract's power when Thor took me back to Asgard," Loki said, his thoughtful tone making it clear that he was speculating now. 

"You mean he is travelling to Asgard?!" Thor exclaimed, his body suddenly alert and tense, his hand reaching for Mjollnir. 

"No," said Sigyn. "He's already there." 

There was uproar. Literally. Thor jumped to his feet and roared his anger, Mojllnir flying to his hand and his armour gleaning as it charged and readied for battle.  

"I must leave immediately!" he announced and marched towards the door. 

"How are you going to get there?" Sigyn asked, turning around in her chair to face him. "The Bifrost is still shattered, you have no tesseract and no other artefact on this world that can make portals to the other realms." Her expression was firm, but sympathetic.  

"She's right, big guy," Stark said, his mind already buzzing about if he could even contemplate building something that could launch them to other worlds and which other scientific genius' he would need to invite for a sleepover to do it with.  

"I'm going to assume you came to us with a plan?" Steve said, recognising that Sigyn had clearly prepared thoroughly for this encounter.  

"Yes," she affirmed. 

"How did you get here?" Tasha asked. The others in the room instantly felt silent as they realised what an important question it was. Sigyn took a fraction of a second too long to answer. 

"I've lived on Midgard for the best part of seventy years, I've been here a while." 

"But you have to have left to know what happened on Asgard. Thor and Loki came here from there and they've only been here two weeks," she shot back. 

"And the kingdom was secure when we left," Thor added. Svali looked incredibly awkward and out of place and was sweating slightly. Sigyn sighed deeply. 

"Can we finish this conversation first and I will tell you afterward. Let's just say that if we use the method I did for getting here we will attract far too much attention and might as well shoot ourselves in the foot." Her eyes met those of now very suspicious Avengers and she could feel Loki grow cold and suspicious next to her. 

"Why can't you tell us now?" he asked slowly and dangerously.  

"Because you're not going to like it and we have so many more important things to do than quibble about this," she said, growing exasperated and tense. Svali couldn't contain himself, he rose to his feet and went to the kitchen to get a drink to cool his nerves. It took him a few moments to figure out the tap, but soon had the faucet gushing.  

"If we're not going to like it I want to know now before we go any further," Steve said. 

"Fine," Sigyn snarled angrily and pushed herself out of the chair. "But before I do, Loki, no matter what I am about to tell you, take the paths of Yggdrasil to see your daughter, she is the only one who you can trust to help." Sigyn. Loki regarded her with a deepening distrust and only nodded shortly in response.  

"Svali!" she summoned her son who came round quickly to stand beside her.  

"Some of the greater relics have the ability to create portals between the world, like the tesseract. Another one that is sufficiently powerful enough is the Casket of Ancient Winters." 

"The Jotun relic?!" Thor exclaimed. She nodded. "How did you get it, it is in the vault!" 

"How did you use it?" Loki asked, possibly the more pertinent question. 

"Lady Frigga had Heimdall fetch me from where I was holidaying on an island off the coast of Thailand and bring me to Asgard. I met privately with the king and queen who told me that they knew the Eternal One was coming, that when they first found out they had sent the two of you to Midgard to keep you safe from the oncoming onslaught which they knew they would not be able to successfully defend. They made me swear that I would take news of what was going to happen when it happened to the two of you and you would have to counter the Eternal One from here. I had time to collect Svali from where he had been studying in Musspellheim and bring him to Asgard when the first attack ships came." There was deathly silence. 

"They did not even meet the warriors of Asgard on the ground, but bombarded the eternal realm from the skies, decimating much of the lower cities. Odin took us directly to the vault and gave me the Casket, saying that there was use with it in my hands. Then he took us down to the cave where you were held," she said, passing a distraught glace to Loki who looked mortified.  

"Lady Frigga was leading the counter attack and he closed the cave enough to hide us, but enough that we could slip out and told us to stay there until the fighting stopped." She grabbed Svali's hand and held it tight as she struggled through this part of her narrative. "We hid for three days in that despicable place that was still strewn with the entrails of your son," she described. "When the explosions, screams and shaking stopped we snuck out. The palace is in ruins, the dead were everywhere and..." she stopped, trying to control her trembling voice, an extension of her entire body shaking. "Odin is hanging from the main gate. And he's not dying." The only sound was Thor dropping Mjollnir, his face contorted with pain at the fate of his beloved world and father. 

"Huginn and Muninn are still around. Huginn plucked Odin's other eye from his socket and gave it to me. After that we were spotted and had to run for our lives. I used the Casket to get us out and to here." A wave of her hand and the leather pouch appeared once more. 

"Is that..." Stark asked, rather grossed out.  

"I think there is a part of his magic in here which is why he gave it to me." 

"Father...." Thor gasped  softly, his face torn into grief and he looked as though the bottom had vanished from under him and his heart was falling. 

"As horrific and pleasingly fitting as that is," said Loki, his voice still low and dangerous, "you still not have explained how you were able to use the Casket. You may be from Alfheim, the realm of greatest magic, but no matter how accomplished you are, you should not be able to use that." Sigyn practically snarled in frustration, alarming several of the present Avengers who had not been expecting an expression of almost bestial intensity to distort her pretty face.  

"This is why I wanted to save this for last," she growled and magicked the eye out of existence again with an angry wave. She straightened herself up and looked straight ahead of her, not looking at Loki, and changed her form within a couple of seconds. The first part of her body to change was the size, she grew taller and bulkier, her shoulders broadening, chest flattening and face taking on sharper angles. Pale blue erupted from beneath her skin, chasing away the pink of her flesh, the very colour of it looking cold and welts raised themselves to form the lines and curves of her sacral markings, denoting her heritage and abilities with seidr. Her hair appeared to reduce and become encased in a cap of ice-flesh and her eyes burst into deep, dark red. She stood, now taller than even Loki or Thor and as wide. Svali took Sigyn's lead and changed his own form too, reverting back to his Jotun skin with ease and a familiarity, the transformation also only taking a couple of seconds.  

"Ice giants!" Thor roared and Mjollnir flew to his hand as he leapt up and suddenly everyone was on their feet and preparing for a fight to break out at any moment. 


	12. The Eye of Odin

"Yes, well observed, Odinson," Sigyn snarled, her naturally deep voice now slightly deeper in her natural form.  

"You attacked us!" Thor accused and Svali rolled his bright scarlet eyes.  

"We did not!" he growled in exasperation. "We landed here by this place by accident, it was not our purpose to arrive anywhere near you as we knew what prejudice you would take against us!" 

"And with good reason! You lied to my father and tricked him into giving back your Casket! Did you attack him in his sleep, you cowards?!" Thor said, his hot temper rising and venting out of him.  

"I am no coward!" Svali shouted back, indignant. Svali was larger than his bearer, and stood even taller than Thor, his form imposing upon Migardians especially. 

"Do you think that Odin can be fooled by any trick we know?!" Sigyn joined in, her frustration now bleeding out. "I thought we were all supposed to be mindless brutes who know only how to smash skulls with our strong arms, how could we stand against Odin in his own hall?!" 

"If you were smart enough to fool my brother then I do not doubt you could find a way to sneak around Gladsheim!" Thor retorted and Svali actually stepped forward threateningly; Thor raised his hammer in response. 

"We came here to help you, your father is hanging outside his own hall and the only thing you can find to do is indulge your nasty racism that has been the hallmark of your people since the days of Ymir and the murder your father committed against the First Among Giants!" Tempers were flared between the three of them and old wounds were beginning to resurface.  

"Loki?" Bruce asked. All heads turned towards the trickster god. Loki was rigid, his shoulders high and tense, his face twisting and morphing between expressions of anger, betrayal, hurt and confusion. Sigyn moved to approach him, but Thor spoke up. 

"Do not go near my brother, liar giantess!" Sigyn sighed with weariness, but managed to push aside her feelings and tried to look Loki in the eyes, but he was not meeting her gaze, instead he looked up to Bruce who had first addressed him, utter hurt having settled in his eyes.  

"Is there no one in this universe who has not taken me for a fool?" he whispered, broken. "And how have I fallen for it EVERY SINGLE TIME?!" he yelled and bolted out of the room, seeking the refuge of solitude in his assigned room. 

"Loki!" Thor called after him, but Bruce stepped forward and laid a hand on the broad arm of the thunderer to stop him. 

"Leave him, I think he needs some time." Thor stared at Bruce for a moment and then nodded, understanding, but not happy. 

"What just happened, can someone fill me in?" Steve asked. 

"So you truly are Jotuns?" Thor asked, his tempered simmered a little. Sigyn looked devastated, her eyes dragging away from the door Loki had left through, no words emerging from her mouth. Svali stepped in. 

"Yes, we are Jotnar," he said.  

"The ice giants are the ancient enemy of my people, and of Midgard," Thor said to the Avengers, but now refusing to take his gaze away from those he perceived as enemies. 

"Does that make us your enemy, no matter what else?" Svali asked. 

"Your people have not squandered any chance to kill my father or bring ruin and slavery to my people or those of other realms. At every chance of peace you have tried to stab us when our backs are turned, why shouldn't I assume this is just another one of those attempts?" 

Svali looked to his bearer to answer Thor's question as he didn't feel he would be able to explain it very well when much of it happened before his life had even begun, but she didn't say anything. She looked shattered. She squeezed her eyes shut and cradled her head in her hands. 

"Can you two, like, go back to how you were?" Tony asked, the cafetiere in his hands. Svali shot him a look of venomous indignation. 

"Does our true form repel you that much, Midgardian?" he snarled. 

"It's not that, but you're fricking ice machines and made the coffee go cold," said, pouring the coffee to demonstrate the absence of steam. 

##

The giant known as Sigyn was sat on the floor, her temperature output now more controlled with a flick of seidr, but she did not revert back to her Midgardian form and thus neither did Svali. She felt so bereft, this was her greatest fear come true and it had been circumstance which had pushed them to this revelation, not her choice. Her body felt strange, odd reactions to her emotional state making her feel even worse than she thought possible at this moment in time. For so long she had clung to the bigger picture and worked towards the long-term goals that she had forgotten what the effects could be on the personal level and whilst she had understood that this mess was in many ways a probability, it didn't really make it any better or lessen the bitter pain. She loved Loki so much and since her banishment from Asgard, she had thought only of him, of one day finding a way back to him, like two shards of shattered ice that fell in different places, but would eventually melt, run down the mountain and find each other again in the great river. She had been patient, biding her time until Loki was either freed or released himself from the tethers of Odin and she would return to him, be reunited with the other piece of her she had left behind in Gladsheim. She had snuck around the boundaries of the worlds, checking on the situations of her children, raising her only free offspring, Svali, and wait for the day her family would stand together again. Right now, though, she cursed herself for her optimism, spat upon the infantile dreams of a joyous reunion and screamed at her foolish wish that Loki would understand why she had hidden her true nature from him. She felt desolate. 

"You need to do some explaining," Steve said. There had been the longest and most awkward silence most of the Avengers had ever experienced. Clint and Tony had gone to remake the coffee and grab a couple of snacks while Thor and Svali stared each other down, barely moving except to shift their weight a couple of times, but always into a battle stance. 

"I do," she said eventually, her voice strained, clearly emotional. "You deserve that at the very least; we have come into your home and thrown it into chaos," she said, but stopped just short of an apology. 

"Is Sigyn even your real name?" Thor asked, but the antagonism of before was waning; he found it so very difficult to hold a grudge against someone who was clearly conflicted. The pair before him were not acting like any ice giants he had met before, Loki excluded, and it confused him, making him wanting to hear some more, to try and weigh up the facts as his father might do.  

Tasha's eyes darted to the door at the end of the hall, which had opened a fraction and she could see the crushed convict on the other side listening in. He met her eyes and shook his head, he wanted to listen without confronting Sigyn, and Tasha could respect that. She moved her eyes back to the giant in front of her, but kept half an eye on Loki, just to be sure.  

"That is not my birth name. My real name is Angrboda, a more Jotnar name I could not wish for. I am the fourth child of Faengar and Myrir. Faengar was my Sire and Sovereign of Jotunheim before Laufey." 

"Laufey?" Tasha repeated out loud, recognising the name. "The Shield files name him as Loki's father, is that true?" 

"Mostly; Laufey was Loki's bearer, but that is small point. I was part of the royal line. According to our custom, any Jotnar can challenge the Sovereign for the throne, and Laufey came down from the far north to the palace-fortress of Gastropnir and laid down the challenge. 

"Clearly, Laufey won the battle with his trademark brutality and assumed the Glacial Throne of Jotunheim. As per our traditions, in order to assure a swift and smooth succession and to avoid civil war, Faegar's immediate kin were executed. My bearer and three siblings were put to a quick death, but I was too young for execution and so sentenced to exile. I was disregarded by Jotunheim, but in turn I was free of it and bore it no loyalty or debt, the theory being that we would not see each other again." 

"That's barbaric! They killed your whole family?!" Steve exclaimed, unable to help himself; he saw an injustice in his eyes and could not remain quiet, that had never been in his nature.  

"As if your world hasn't been full of all of that," Angrboda said with a weary voice. "I could reel off countless examples of it in your own history, as well as the slaughter of children," she shot back. 

"There are two types of frost giant; the Brutsaer, who are the hulking warrior caste and the Seidrsaer, who are the magic users. Loki, Svali and myself are all Seidrsaer. Because of this, I was sent to Alfheim to seek the refuge and mercy of Lord Freyr, king of the realm of magic. He tested my proficiency with magic and potential to grow and was found to be acceptable. He taught me how to perfect my slipskins and when in disguise as a Light Elf of his court, only he could tell I was not born of their realm. I spent several centuries expanding my craft, learning from some of the wisest sages of Alfheim, travelling and continuing to improve my understanding and command of magic. 

"I met prince Loki when he was travelling Alfheim in search of the wisest seidr teachers and over the course of his repeated visits we forged a relationship." She stopped when she heard the door behind her open and footsteps approach. Svali and Thor were standing at ease now, and they moved away from each other in order to turn and see Loki. 

"We met, but why did you never tell me the truth? Did you think it was funny? The Asgardian prince and Jotun exile?" he demanded.  

"I was terrified!" she retorted, raising her voice. Loki looked confused by way of a reply. "You were a prince of the all-powerful Asgard, son of the king who had since brought my old home world to its knees, to those who smashed the skulls of ice giants where they were found abroad of Jotunheim. We met, entirely by accident at the home of our rune tutor, and I saw how adept you were with seidr. I was so afraid that if you found out I was one of your old enemies, even though I had been denounced by my old home, that you would take up your father's cause and kill me!" Loki stared at her, his mouth hanging slightly agape. He wasn't registering it at the time, but he could see Sigyn in the giant's face, her features were sharper and parts quite different, but he could recognise her now.  

But aside from that he was astonished, right the way through. It had never occurred to him, in all his centuries alive, that there could be Jotuns who feared him; he had been so used to the Asgardian assumptions that they were all thick-headed brutes that charged whenever they saw an Aesir and were constantly plotting to kill Odin. He was beginning to realise how little of Jotunheim and its people that he knew, and how little Asgard wanted to know; he did not even know about the two castes and that the ice giants were even able to use more than basic seidr. His astonishment began to turn to horror as he cast his mind back to their first encounters, how she was nervous around him, always looked to the door and ran off when he tried to touch her. What he had taken for shyness was real fear for her life. He cursed his younger self and cringed internally at his behaviours back then; it brought him back to the longing that he had known from the start, but he had to concede she did have a very valid point. He would have been afraid to walk among Jotuns at that age and relative level of weakness, so he thought he could understand how she had felt. But once they were secure in their love, why did she feel the need to hide it still? Would it not have been better to be honest about it, especially since their first child appeared rather early on in their relationship. 

"Why did you continue the lie?" he asked. 

"First among all reasons is that I couldn't bear the thought that you would leave me once I told you. I couldn't even fathom my life without you then, I was so in love I couldn't see straight and I was willing to live the rest of my life in a different skin to be with you. We even tried that when we made the deal that I would don an Aesir skin semi-permanently in order to go to Gladsheim and live with you. We were going to be married on that fundamental lie!" 

"But you wouldn't have been lying to me!" Loki said in return. 

"I can't say that I made the wisest choices, but those were the choices I made and I can't go back and change them. Loki, we've done so much together, I have bore four of your children, raised Svali as best as I know how, risked much to bring your comfort and respite during your Ordeal, what more do you demand of me?" she raised her head and looked him directly in the eyes; he was still unsure of her Jotun form, but they spoke through their gazes nonetheless.  

"I know there is every chance you will want to wash your hands of me, so before I leave I have two last things I need to do, in terms of the bigger picture and helping the possibility of saving the nine realms." She whisked Odin's eye back into existence with a wave of her hand, a shimmer appearing with the conjure, her trademark. 

"I really want to know how you guys do that," Tony said, blinking furiously as the magic had put his eyes out of focus. Angrboda was too focussed to reply, but Svali couldn't help but snicker a little. Before Stark could react to the snicker, the eye began to glow with a golden light that looked more like liquid metal than pure energy. It swirled and coalesced around Angrboda's hand for a moment before shooting out to hit Loki square in the chest. The force of it was enough to throw him back and into the wall, creating a sizable dent and a lot of splinters. 

"Aww man," Tony swore to himself as he heard the damage, the trickster and the pulse of magic obscuring the actual view.


	13. Liberation From Inside his Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki is freed, from his bindings and from his Aesir form; this creates a struggle for Thor who is given a lesson on true brotherhood by his friends.

"Brother, the bindings!" Thor exclaimed, able to see through the bright light that was blinding the humans, and was referring to the runes etched into Loki's skin filling with light, bursting and fizzling away into nothing as the spell binding Loki's magic was undone. When this process was complete, the light went back into the eye and Loki stood, on the other side of the room, looking magnificent, looking like a god. His colour was back, and though the scars were by no means gone, they were filled with the same life-energy and power that lay underneath the rest of his skin and behind his eyes; he was clearly filled to the brim with magic.   

The humans lowered their arms when the light stopped piercing their eyelids and looked at the re-born trickster. He even looked better and more naturally godlike than when they had fought him just over a year ago. 

"You are restored," Thor said, wondrously and dropped Mjollnir to go and embrace his brother who was positively smothered by the broad shoulders and arms of the thunderer who also seemed intent on hugging the good feelings into Loki. "You look very well," he said and Loki nodded, still unsure about the impromptu embrace. 

"Not that I think we can really do anything about it, but do we really think this is a good idea?" Clint said quietly to the others.  

"But what if he is no longer the bad guy here?" Bruce said, feeling increasingly that he had been nominated somewhere, without his knowledge or permission, to play devil's advocate. 

"You believe that spiel about getting lost in space and trying to play the big bad from the inside?" Tony added, his own suspicion in doubt. While there was no question that their attitudes towards the trickster god had changed while he had been in his grieving period in the tower, it was an entirely different kettle of fish to have him with his powers back and looking far more alive than ever. 

"What do you think, Tasha?" Clint asked. 

"I think our lives are about to get a lot more complicated," she said. Bruce nodded in agreement and shared a look with the spy that was like taking the deep breath before the plunge. 

"The eye is undoing all the magic Odin has cast upon you," Angrboda explained, her voice subdued and dulled. "I would suggest you move back prince Thor because he will revert back to his own skin in a moment." Thor frowned and stepped back as per her suggestion and was then glad he did so was Loki turned blue skinned, ridged and red-eyed. 

"By the norns..." Thor exclaimed in awe as he studied his brother's new visage. He had never seen Loki like this, and had never admitted that he was curious since the day his father had first told him about Loki's heritage. The prince look distinctly uncomfortable in this form, as it was something that he had only ever done twice and only for a few seconds each, neither time he was particularly thinking about the changes he could feel in his body. Although, there was an unpleasant jarring sensation, in his muscles and in his gut and chest, as though his body was about to go into spasm. He doubled over and threw a desperate look to Angrboda who became rather alarmed at what was happening. She jumped up and rushed over to him, the floor shaking somewhat at the bounding weight of the giant.  

Her hand shimmered again as she performed a magical scan of his body to determine what was happening. As far as she could feel, the seidr was becoming knotted, like abused muscles, causing blockage and increasing pain. She looked at his body and prodded him in a few places, realising what the problem was. 

"Have you ever taken your Jotun form?" she asked urgently.  

"When I touched the Casket," he wheezed. 

"So you've never become totally Jotun while you've been an adult, your body isn't sure what to do now that the normal patterns of magic aren't there. Odin's magic was literally in your blood, keeping you Aesir. Luckily for you, I have something for that," she said and flipped the Casket into the air in front of her. "Touch it, I'll tell it what to do," she urged and Loki, for reasons he would fathom deeply over later, instantly trusted her and slammed his hand onto the crystalline box. Icy blue energy latched onto his hand and crawled up his arm, drilling tiny tendrils of magic into his skin and seeping into his body and the core of his being. It spread quickly, engulfing him in a matter of seconds and he could feel his body changing in strange ways he had never experienced. His shoulders broadened, his limbs bulked out proportionately as his size grew and he could feel the internal organs shifting around in location and size, as well as a disturbing sense of change in his nether regions that he wasn't going to point out in front of everyone right now. 

The magic receded and slowly, Loki pushed himself to his feet and revealed his new size. He was half a foot taller and so wider, his features now more angular and looking far more like a Jotnar royal-born than an Aesir just with blue skin and red eyes. 

"I'm glad you didn't look like that when you turned up to secretly not take over the world a year ago," Clint said, honesty spilling out of his mouth before he could check himself. Loki slowly pulled his hand away from the Casket, the magic receding into the crystal and metal box, his skin settling and cold breath coming from his mouth. 

"I feel strange," he whispered as he was still trying to catch his breath. 

"I'm not surprised. There are some considerable differences in Jotun and Aesir physiology, but you will become accustomed to it quickly. Look up," she said, as softly as a deep Jotun voice could be. He did so, still hearing her voice through the strange new filter and how he seemed to find it strangely more pleasing in his new form than in his previous one. She scanned his face, looked deep into his eyes and examined the markings on his skin, presumably checking the success of the transformation. Angrboda could read some of the natural markings that denoted his lineage, though she could not interpret them all, and how some of them had been interfered with by the burns and scars that would show on any skin he wore now. 

"You look well," she said shortly and looked away, biting her lip. Loki frowned, recognising the habit as something she did when they were together and when she bit her lip he could usually take it as a sign that she was going to go down on him. How could she be having lustful thoughts at a time like this? Asgard in ruins, the dark horror almost in sight and nearly everything he had put trust in seemed to be turning on its head, one by one.  

Angrboda had to look away, she had not thought about how she might react to seeing his true form restored. She had perceived it as a step in the grand plan to get him and the others tied to him, into action and strengthen the fight against the horrific struggle they had before them. She certainly had not anticipated that she would be so affected by seeing her lover in his natural, Jotun skin, suddenly like her now and one of her own. Perhaps it was both of them in these forms that made him so especially attractive to her, who, upon seeing him, felt like someone dying of thirst and Loki was a welcome oasis. The libido of her people were legendary in their own halls, most of the songs ever composed or sung in the icy halls were explicit tales of conquest and the rest were gory battles and past glories. As she had not really spent much time in her Jotun form after puberty, she had never really experienced these feelings very much as they diminished greatly in other skins. Perhaps that would calm her down and allow her to focus again. With a shaky breath that she felt sure gave her away, she shrank down into the Aesir skin that Thor was more familiar with and eyed the drinks tray hopefully.  

"That's really disorienting," Tony said as he took a drink over to her. It also gave him opportunity to give Loki's new skin a good look over, and he was surprised to see the number of changes, and that despite retaining a humanoid shape, the bone structure was still very different in places and he now looked much more severe. "Looks good on you," he said, with a nod of appreciation and undisguised curiosity. Loki stared for a moment, utterly disarmed by the remark; he had been expecting revulsion and suspicion from those who, while they had been accommodating and even friendly, had no reason to truly trust the exiled trickster.  

Loki set about prodding himself in various places where he had changed the most notably, trying to work out his new bones and organs and what the new lump on his side was. As he was absorbed in this task, Steve took a couple of quiet steps over to Thor who wore a very uneasy expression. He was conflicted, because on the one hand this beloved brother had reclaimed a form that Thor had once intended to destroy and on the other, it really hit home how Loki was not his blooded brother. He had always said until that it did not matter, because Thor had never really had to look at the differences between and now he could not escape the fact that they were not related at all. The Thunderer had secretly thought of Loki as his better half sometimes, but now how could any of that been anything short of ridiculous? When he looked back on this moment in many years once he had attained many years and some wisdom, he would label this moment as the true death of his childhood. The other thing this transformation meant to him was that now Loki was even further away from him, now there would be no going back to Asgard together, no lives lived with the joy of the other's company because this difference was insurmountable. Again, Thor's dreams of returning to their youth and their relationship then seemed impossible and he was forced to look at the grey future of the adult with responsibilities. 

"You alright?" Steve asked, guessing a fraction of what Thor was feeling at that moment as the implications of the transformation were forced upon him.  

"I do not know," Thor replied. Their quiet words were masked by the conversation of the change in the rib cage and a new internal organ which Loki was very curious about. "I suppose now I must truly face that Loki is not my brother," he said sadly, truly lamenting that fact. Steve shook his head. 

"If it's worth anything, I don't think brother just means a sibling, you know, someone you're related to.. I think when you call a man your brother, you're saying that you have a bond that's really special, beyond just being pals, you know?" Thor nodded, his full attention on Steve as he thought he liked the Midgardian definition of brother. Perhaps that definition was the one he had been fighting for all this time; that he loved Loki and nothing could change that, no matter what it brought him. 

"In the 21st century we say bros," Tony said, a cheeky smile on his face as he unclipped his gauntlet from the other hand. 

"So, Loki and I are bros?" Thor asked, contemplating the meaning of the vernacular. Tony looked appalled at what he had done and Steve levelled a stern glare at the Iron Man who knew he had to correct his mistake immediately; Thor could not be allowed to go around saying 'bros' as it sounded unnatural and wrong.  

"I think brothers is fine," he said and Thor nodded, easily preferring the name he had always called Loki.


	14. Loss of Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers find Svali surprisingly endearing, Loki and Angrboda can barely face each other, and Thor can't stop himself from meddling in affairs of the heart. Yet, amidst the intense personal dramas, the threat still looms, and plans must be made.

Loki, in his new form still, was in the kitchen relearning how to operate his body with its increased size and strangeness of movement in his joints. He had smashed a smoothie glass already and was working on handling the fragile glassware more carefully a well as not poking a hole through the machine when he pressed the button to operate it. Tony had left the floor for the moment, unable to watch the systematic destruction of the kitchen area, even though the new giant was repairing everything with a flick of magic - something else which infuriated him. Angrboda had taken to the landing platform in an effort to get some air and try and clear her mind again, sticking to her Aesir form as she did not want to bear the curiosity of the humans yet while she worked through her sadness and frustration. Clint and Tasha were keeping a close eye on her from inside, stood by the glass door, talking to each other in hushed tones about the likely response of the Shield upper echelons and how best to handle the Security Council when they finally get their hands on the kind of information that has been revealed.

Bruce and Steve were sat with Svali, who had turned out fairly chatty once they had taken the trouble to be polite and speak to him a little. He was not sucking the heat out of the air around him, and even though he appeared as a fully grown adult, he had the sort of excitability of a young teenager, which they supposed he was in Jotun terms. Right now, he was enrapturing them with a well-told story of one of his exploits in Musspellheim, for which he was re-enacting some of the parts.

"The caves go down for miles, you see," he said enthusiastically, "it is too cool on the surface for them to really survive very long, so they live under the ground and closer to the lava flows. Every cavern and cave is carved from solid crystal; it's a dark blue colour which looks amazing in the torchlight. But I went through to the greeting hall of the great king of Musspellheim. It was truly massive!" He looked out the window to gauge the height of the tower. "I would say it was at least as tall as this place, perhaps larger, such a place underground I had never seen!" He was gesticulating wildly now. "All around the edge where balconies and doors which led off into other places in the palace. I had never thought the earth so deep until I went there."

"That sounds incredible, how did the roof stay up though?" Bruce asked, ever curious about the wonders that lay beyond the confines of his home planet.

"The hall tapered to a point," Svali explained and towered his hands together to represent the pointed peak of the hall. "The crystal is incredibly hard to break and so supports itself when the hall begins to narrow."

"And was it dug out, or is this a natural formation?"

"Surtur said the hall has been expanded, but downwards, and that it had been its current size for thousands of years. I think it was a naturally large place anyway, but they have embellished on that."

"This sounds incredible. And how have they adapted to the extreme temperatures?"

"The giants of Musspellheim have turned much of their flesh to stone," Svali said and, after a flicker of concentration, took his fire giant form. "There is flesh on the inside, but only deep inside. The young one had retained his size and mostly his shape, though his skin was not now the thin layer of ice that it had been before, but hard rock, moving obsidian which gleamed in the hallogen lights of the tower.

"May I-?" he asked curiously, holding out his hand. Svali nodded. Bruce touched Svali's arm and marvelled at the texture, of how smooth it was, like polished stone, and how it emitted a gentle warmth. "I knew it was possible for organic matter to bond with inorganic, like an exoskeleton, but the union is seamless." He turned over the black hand to look in the palm, at the finger joints, which had deep scratches set into the stone instead of the usual creases one finds in skin. "This is utterly incredible."

Svali continued to be inspected by Bruce, finding it rather flattering that so much interest had been taken in his form and he found the scientist's thirst for knowledge refreshing after the gawping from before. Steve looked far more reserved, but appreciated the points of interest Bruce was pointing out, though probably to a far lesser degree.

Thor was quiet. There seemed little for him to say at the moment, especially with everyone else occupied so. For the first time since he had regained his powers and the allegiance of Mjollnir, he felt powerless and lost. If what Angrboda had said was true, and Asgard and his father had fallen, then he knew not what he could do about it. There was no way to return to Asgard without walking into an ambush, and he could not completely re-take Asgard on his own, especially when the other great warriors had been felled by this terrible enemy. If Odin could not withstand the strength of the Eternal One, then what hope had he? Again, if the frost giant's words were to be trusted, Odin knew of the calamity facing his kingdom and sent away its two greatest hopes, knowing their only chance would be to re-take Asgard once it had fallen. Was there something he had to acquire in order to fulfil this mission? Is that why? Because if it was simply a matter of strength, they would have stood with Heimdall and the others against the onslaught. There was still something missing from the story and he itched to know it, to have Angrboda finish what she had come here to say, but she seemed unable to speak at the moment. For a selfish moment, he wished they had done as she had bidden them to do and leave the question of her own arrival, and subsequent revelation of her heritage, until the end of the conversation, but Thor knew that it was something that needed to happen. His heart ached for his home and he wished ardently that his beloved friends and family were as safe and well as was possible, though he fully understood that he would be facing a grim prospect upon his return to the Eternal Realm.

He thought about going to speak with Loki, who had purposely avoided Thor since he had taken his own skin back, but thought against it as he did not want to upset his brother who seemed to be calm only by a small margin. Instead, the conflicted Aesir prince went out onto the platform and sat with the ice giant who was cloaked in the skin of Thor's people. She gave him a nod of acknowledgement, but said nothing. Fresh tears rolled down her face, following the rivulets of dried ones that had preceded them. Thor would never be able to deny the beauty of her as Sigyn, the hair that shone like spun gold, the defined features of her face and bright crystalline eyes which shone with tears now, and he remembered being jealous of his brother for winning the heart of such a creature. He wondered if the visage before him was false, an image she had constructed to be the best possible version of an Aesir woman in order that her beauty might sway the hearts of those around her, but as he looked to her face, he saw parts of the features he had seen in her as a human, and then as a Jotun. He had to know.

"I do not mean to start a quarrel, but I must know, is that face your own? Or did you copy it from an Aesir?" he asked, his voice as free from antagonism as he could consciously make it. She shot him a suspicious look, wondering if he really did mean to pick a fight, but she had come to understand that Thor was not as complicated as all that and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt by taking his question at face value.

"No. This is how I would look as an Aesir, I cannot take another's face, not without large amounts of magic, and you would have certainly noticed that," she answered honestly.

"Then please, look me in the eye and tell me that you have spoken the truth, about my home," he pleaded, and looked directly into her eyes.

"I swear on the life of my son that I have spoken nothing but truth," she said, her voice strained from emotion.

"And Loki?"

"I love him as sure as the sun rules the day and the moon is the sovereign of the night," she said, unable to hide the passion in her voice. "That is the strength of my feeling, though I understand how he feels betrayed. I was afraid, I still am, I am terrified to go back in there knowing that when he looks at me he will show only spurn and disgust for me. I understand that it is likely, and that it might happen, but it makes it no less daunting."

"Do you not hold out hope that he will forgive you? He loved you so much when you came to Asgard. I had never seen him so devastated as when you left." The air seemed to rush out of her with a hurt sigh.

"I hope he will, but I lied to him and if I've destroyed the trust between us then there can be no...no relationship. No togetherness." The thought was clearly terrifying for her, but there was a resignation in her voice that told Thor she was prepared for that to happen and she would have a sense of moving on, despite her broken heart. "I should take responsibility for that, after all, I made that choice. I had my reasons, and made them known, all that's left is for Loki to make his choice." 

"Why do you not go in to fight for him? You leave him alone with such thoughts, when you should be reminding him of all that you are together," Thor said, thinking that all this inaction was damaging and allowing them to get in their own way to happiness. 

"I don't want to stand there and brow beat him into anything," she said, reluctant to move from her position. "The love is there, that is worth saving!" Thor exclaimed, knowing it truly in his soft heart from the honest reaction of the two when they first saw each other in the tower a couple of hours ago. 

"He is capable of making his own decision, I can't pull the rug from under his feet and then demand that he accept it and go back to how everything was. You know, the Midgardians have a saying, that there is bliss in ignorance. I agree," she said and sat her chin on her arm, which was curled over her raised knees. 

"I should have known you were never Aesir," Thor said, rising to his feet. She looked sharply up at him. "We never dither like this, we take action to get what we want," he said and marched off back inside to get his brother and fix this mess. 

"But neither of us ever were Aesir," Angrboda said softly to the wind as Thor had already left her side to go and interfere. Perhaps he was right and she should do more to salvage the situation, but she wanted to respect Loki and his feelings, not just try and imprint hers upon him; she figured he had had enough of others doing that to him.

## 

"I ducked his punch and twisted round like this," Svali was still in full story telling mode, now telling of a fight he got into in Surtur's palace and how well he had done. He pulled Steve into a loose headlock, demonstrating what he had done, "but, he managed to hook his foot round my knee, and I lost my balance," he said and they both went down to their knees. "But my bearer taught me well and I was able to do this," he said and before Steve could even realise what was being done to him, he was on his back on the floor, the wind pushed out of him and Svali leaning over him, telling his story to a thoroughly amused Bruce Banner who was watching the whole scene with a smirk on his face. 

"How did you do that?!" Steve exclaimed, as he had been able to keep up with Svali's movements until then, but he had no idea what had just been done to him. Svali helped him up and showed him the move again, and once more Steve was left lost on the floor. 

"It might be easier to show him in human form," Bruce suggested and Svali nodded in agreement. It took him a few moments of concentration to get back into the new skin, but he did it, shrinking down and the stone of hire fire giant form receding into soft flesh. 

Loki watched this from the kitchen, drinking the shake he had managed to make for himself. It was a strange thought that the very enthusiastic young man in front of him was his son, a child he had never got to meet or know before now, but Loki found himself really wanting to. The shapeshifting abilities of his child were impressive, and Loki couldn't help the feelings of pride that had swollen in his chest as he watched the energetic story unfold, with Svali unaware that his father was listening in. He wondered for a moment if it ever mattered what race they were at birth, as slipskins they could fall into whatever form they wanted as easily as changing one's coat. But then on the other hand, maybe it did matter because the basis for a person still came from that race, he would still have the predilection for utter savagery when he wanted (he had faced that part of him before), and it was something that was not in the Aesir as it had been in him. He had wondered why he was so different from everyone else when he was growing up, and perhaps that had been down to fundamental differences of nature between them. He supposed what mattered more to him than Angrboda's true name or race was the fact that she had kept those things from him and lied for a very long time about something he felt was rather important. 

He wondered if something was amiss that he did not feel more anger and resentment, as he had done when he had uncovered Odin's betrayal, perhaps the shock was so much less now that he had gone through the shock of his own true skin. He thought that he should have shouted, fought and turned her away, fighting if necessary, but the thought of bringing harm to her still jarred painfully in his chest. Against the wishes of his more calculating mind, his heart rebelled at the thought of hurting her because he had to confront that he still loved her deeply and that while the lie may hurt, it had not broken his love. But there was more to being with someone that just loving them, he wondered if he could ever trust her again and that would be the main hurdle they would have to overcome if they even wanted to try and resume some kind of relationship. He wasn't sure if he wanted that.

He had to smile as Svali flipped Steve again for the sixth or seventh time and he knew he could feel only ever warmth for his son. Loki thought that should he not go back to Angrboda, he could not be so cold as to be mean to her and cordiality would be less painful in the long-term and much better for Svali, who looked older than he truly was. 

"Brother," Thor said, announcing his presence in the kitchen. Loki looked at him, a full Jotun stare and Thor fought to maintain the gaze, refusing to accept Loki's inference that he could not be called that now when he was in his own true skin. 

"Don't try to play match-maker Thor, you would be terrible," he said, trying to evade the emotional torrent that was surely the Thunderer's tactic. 

"You both love each other," he said in a tone as simple as his argument. "What else is there?" 

"Trust." 

"She had good reason to do what she did, she was afraid and then in love. What two greater states of madness are there?" Thor said, rather romantically. Loki's lips twitched at the sentimentality. 

"Thor, I'm sure you mean well, but this situation is not as simple as you, I would appreciate you leaving me to my own thoughts." The comment was fairly scathing, but not nasty and Thor took a breath and let it go. 

"Perhaps you're overcomplicating the situation. Even so, you need to at hear the rest of what she has to say. It is far too important to put off much longer because of your issues," he said, his voice changing and Loki recognised the royal in Thor emerging and he took on a more serious demeanour, indicating he was getting to business, playing the part of the prince and one-day king. Loki nodded curtly and drained the rest of his glass. Thor went to gather his friends and their guests while Loki lingered for a few moments. He did not want to go back into that room as a Jotun. He was not sure if he felt entirely comfortable with it yet, and he had only really remained in that form was to get accustomed to the change in his body, but he was feeling increasingly self-conscious. With a shiver and small groan of effort, he squeezed his body down, compacting it, making him feel packed into the skin and he had not realised how liberated his body had felt in its larger form until now. Regardless, he felt more comfortable with his reflection in the dark marble of the shining kitchen surface and went back into the main room where Tony had returned, this time with a tablet computer and seemed to be going through the information recorded from Angrboda as they prepared for the next segment. Tasha was outside, speaking with their Aesir form guest. Svali, who had shifted back to Jotun form for the last part of his story, finished his tale as Loki re-entered and his bright face fell when he saw that his sire had gone back to the Aesir form he had been wearing beforehand. He looked surprised and hugely awkward, as though he was afraid Loki did not approve of their natural state and popped back into the Aesir skin with a surprised noise escaping his throat as his body changed very quickly with a pop. 

Tasha guided Angrboda back into the main room and she tentatively took her seat again, eyes quickly checking as to her son's wellbeing, to where Mjollnir was in relation to Thor and then to what distrustful expression Loki was wearing. 

"What I have left to say," she began, "is more about the practical nature of how we might combat the Eternal One who is, without a doubt, planning to offer the nine worlds as sacrifice to Mistress Death. The realms are weak, Jotunheim is fractured, tribes fight over the vacant throne, the fire giants are plagued by a terrible disease which is killing them and many of the other worlds have shut themselves off from the dealings of others. Vanaheim and Alfheim never involve themselves in the problems of others, the dwarves are a lost cause and Svartlfheim has been silent for centuries. Midgard is tenacious, but physically weak and Asgard is lost. We have a struggle on our hands, no matter which way you put it." 

"That's eight worlds, what about the ninth?" Tony asked, referring to the small map and names that he had drawn up on his tablet so he had the information he needed available. Thor, Loki and Angrboda shifted, clearly uncomfortable; the synchronisation would have been funny if their expressions had not been so grave and a little fearful. 

"The last realm is Niflheim," Thor said, his voice more grim than they had ever heard it. "The world of the dead." 

"Oh now I know you can't be serious," Tony said with a contemptuous eye-roll. "I'm willing to concede that there's magic out there, but I refuse to believe that when we die we go to some super spooky land of the living dead shtick." 

"Whether you believe it or not, Hel rules over a dead world, and the day she raises her army to fight an invader is the day we have lost too much to continue," Loki said, much to their surprise. 

"The Eternal One knows that too," Angrboda said. "And I think we can use that." 

"Hel's kingdom must not be involved in this fight!" Thor said, forcefully, but not aggressively. 

"So we don't involve her kingdom," Angrboda said simply. Thor was silenced for a moment while he thought about it. "She has a formidable mind as only a ruler of Niflheim can have. Let us consult her."

"She also keeps the secrets of the dead, perhaps there is something she can tell us that will help, or perhaps a relic Odin meant for us to find when he sent us here," Loki hypothesised, his mind working quickly now as he calculated the many possibilities. 

"Then it sounds like you have your course of action," Tasha said, raising her voice clearly above the nearly audible thoughts of the Aesir and Jotuns. "But why have you involved us in this? You have been more than clear about wanting our input. What do you want from us?" Bruce nodded at the pertinence of the question and the Avengers turned their gazes to Angrboda who looked unsure as how to respond. 

"Because...because as cheesy as this sounds, you're earth's heroes, the people who would be sung about in the halls across the world if that sort of thing happened anymore. You're more than just capable fighters, you have the hearts of the old heroes who saved humanity from the darkness lurking in every concealed place. You're the only ones with strength left; the realms are jaded and weak, whereas you blaze brightly. Your strength should inspire that in others. I had thought that perhaps I should just wait for the end to come until I found out the extent of your strength in the battle against the Chitauri. I can't explain it other than you sit in the company of Gilgamesh, Hektor and Arthur; now you're needed to step up. And because we four cannot do this on our own." She was acutely aware that she had rambled some in terms of trying to express her feeling, her gut instinct which had led her to involve the young and shortly-lived humans in this exploit which may well be physically above them, but their strength was in their spirit, not their arm.


	15. Fratricide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long before he had hoped for it to be so, Thor must now step up to a grave and powerful mantle. Angrboda describes her vision of Loki's destiny, but it is not one he wants to consider. Yet, despite the trickster's discomfiture, such a plan would bring healing and hope to a shattered world. Also, Loki's struggle to define family, as one you choose or who are bound by blood to, is tested further with news from his birth-world.

“That’s touching, but we’re ‘physically weak’, how are you expecting us to fight?” Tasha asked. Her tone was not quite antagonistic, but it was a little beyond strictly business either; she clearly did not appreciate aliens dropping in on their front door and just telling her that she had to involve herself in some intergalactic war.

“No one else will at the moment. Humanity is the race of potential; you bring out the pinnacle of traits in the races you interact with, be those traits benevolent or evil. I think others will see you and follow.”

“Because we love to be bait,” she bit back. Angrboda rolled her eyes.

“Well then no will fight and we will all be slit open on the altar of Mistress Death then,” she snapped, in a rather petulant way which surprised the rest of the assembled listeners. “I am not asking you to fight alone, I am hoping to rally forces to face this enemy, but someone has to be the first to raise their fists and stand in defiance.”

“What is left of Asgard will stand at your side, friends, and we will be proud to do so,” Thor said, subdued from his usual attitude, but in a manner that was more conservative of his energies, and more regal.

“I don’t mean to sound insensitive, Thor,” Steve began and everyone could hear the ‘but’ hanging in the air. “If Odin is…out of the picture for now, are you king of Asgard?” The shift in atmosphere was palpable, it was an outcome no one had been thinking about until now, and they all realised in a split second, before Thor could open his mouth to answer, that he truly was now effectively the ruler of the fallen world.

“Yes, Steven, I am,” he said with a heavy weight that seemed to crush some of the light out of his eyes. He had always believed since the breaking of the bifrost that he would have much time to wait and grow before he stepped up to the throne; never did he assume that he would have it thrust upon him without warning. The scope of his responsibilities blew his world view open and suddenly life was looking to be far more complicated than it had ever been before and the chances of ever going back to the fun filled days of his youth seemed a distant dream. Svali shifted uncomfortably.

“We…don’t have to leave do we?” he asked, his voice sounding as young as he was. Thor looked up at his ‘nephew’ with anguished eyes.

“No, I would not have it,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. “In fact, as I now take the throne of Asgard and the responsibilities and powers of the king of the golden realm I make my first act,” he announced, rising to his feet and taking Mjollnir in his hand. “I issue a full and complete royal pardon to Loki and announce him to be my brother.” Loki immediately shot to his feet and stared Thor long and hard in the eyes, searching for the childish impulsivity that would have been the source of such an action before.

“I was a condemned traitor to the House of Odin, your house, Thor,” Loki said in protest, trying to protect Thor from his own foolishness. The trickster could bear the curse of being an enemy of Odin’s esteemed royal house, but he would not see Thor dragged down by this mess as well, Loki did what he did to save the nine realms, not earn the acceptance of the Aesir.

“It is my slight to forgive, Loki, and I forgive you.” Thor laid his hand on Loki’s shoulder and his brother stared up at him with unabashed confusion, shock and no small degree of joy; he was overwhelmed by the emotions stirred in his heart by the actions of his bonded brother in spirit. He had not truly thought he could regain that fraternal connection with Thor after their rather dramatic spat on the rainbow bridge that saw him tossed into darkness and towards his destiny. Perhaps the Norns were not quite as cruel as he had once accused them of being; they had split him from his brother, lover and children, and then reunited them in a manner that had allowed them to clear the air between them and suddenly Loki was filled with a sense of great unburdening. As Thor was settling the weight of a kingdom onto his shoulders, Loki felt his hated resentments and vendettas that had sat on his chest for so long and suffocated him begin to lift. Of course he would never forgive Odin for what was done to him and his children, but Odin had hung for his crimes and Loki would enact the truest justice that could be done to the Allfather; supplanting him with Odin's own son to rule Asgard. Loki could not imagine something more jarring for the one who regarded himself as the strongest and wisest being in the universe than being swept aside for someone like the kind and compassionate Thor, especially when the crown seemed to be the highest priority Odin knew. This didn’t mean revenge was off the table, but this seemed to present the most complete and crushing victory over Odin he could have every imagined with all the fire and brimstone he had been planning on using.

Thor pulled his brother into a crushing embrace, one that seemed more complete than all the other ginger touches from before and this time Loki had no compunction in thumping his arms around the wider chest of the thunderer and returning the strong hold.

“Laufey and Odin eat your hearts out,” Clint said with a laugh as he burst into giggles over the whole situation. While it was true that his entire world, which had still been in the process of readjusting after Loki’s joyride, had been turned upside down and made to land on its head over the past two weeks and then taken a punch to the face today with Angrboda’s new information, he had to find a way to go with it. If there was one thing his Shield training had taught him was the value of adaptation to new situations and sometimes that called for pushing your personal feelings aside and looking at the facts as they were and assessing the best course of action. Clint’s problem had always been that pushing his feelings to the side was exceptionally difficult for him, one of the reasons he took such issue with Loki’s mind-control (it left him feeling he had been emotionless and that challenged his fundamental view of himself), and his personal anger had been very tempered by his exposure to Loki’s sorrow over the last two weeks. He didn’t want to accept the trickster as even possessing emotions like regret and grief, but the proof was undeniable and it had seeped into his judgements before he knew it had happened.

“So we have Earth and what’s left of Asgard,” Tony said after the brothers had finished their epic man-hug, bringing things back to business while Jarvis ran projections on the likely participation of Earth’s nations to a joint force that would go to Asgard and take on some alien asswipe. “What else have you got for us Snow Queen?” Angrboda looked up, a little startled at the name used, and while she understood the Midgardian reference, couldn’t help the tiny blush on her cheeks from the prospect of her being a snow queen and thus of Jotunheim and therefore spouse of its king which would be…

“Loki.”

“You may need to elaborate on that,” he said.

“You are Laufey’s child,” she said, looking to the trickster.

“You cannot be serious!” Loki cried, incredulity creasing his face.

“Byleistr and Hellblindi died in the attack on Gastropnir. The Jotnar are squabbling amongst themselves for a new sovereign, but no one can accept any of the chiefs put forward. You would be the only choice they would all consider, and since it is your birthright, they need not even consider it and only accept it.”

“But Loki has lived on Asgard for most of his life and was raised an Aesir prince, would they accept him then?” Thor asked, neatly steamrolling past the issue of Loki’s attempted genocide with the force of a king.

“Blood is the way of Jotunheim, and his is the only beating heart of Laufey’s line,” she replied. Loki had gone very quiet. Angrboda had named two giants who could have taken the throne, Byleistr and Hellblindi, and it was not a difficult leap to make that they were also the legitimate children of Laufey. His older brothers. By blood. And here was he, making bonds of brotherhood with an alien not of his own line. What did that mean?

“It means that you have Thor’s love and that is the greater bond of brotherhood,” Tasha said quietly to Loki. The Avengers stared at her as they looked between her and Loki and reverse-engineered what must just have occurred between them.

“I knew you were a mind reader,” Tony grumbled.

“No, I just know that look,” she said, but kept her gaze on Loki until he looked away and up to Thor. The Black Widow of Midgard was right; blood only went so far and that the love of a bond made it stronger, not obligation; the heart is far better led enthusiastically from the front than following from behind in shackles.

“They won’t accept me because I was the one who attacked Gastropnir,” Loki confessed. Angrboda’s face fell into horror and settled there. “When I found out what I was… I am not going to say that I was confused because I knew exactly what I was doing, but in an attempt to win back Odin’s favour and prove myself not a monster, I sought to destroy the race of monsters I so feared. I turned the bifrost on Jotunheim and it began at the last place it had set down: Gastropnir, Laufey’s palace.” Svali’s gasp was audible and he looked positively terrified that his sire would hate the Jotnar so much that he would try to destroy them all, and by extension him. Angrboda said nothing, but passed a horrified eye over her former lover and for the first time looked as though she truly regretted coming here and reuniting with Loki. He shifted and she actually jumped in alarm. Loki understood and sat back, away from her; he was a genocide and it was only reasonable to expect her to fear and hate him, it was something he had been used to seeing in the eyes of the other Aesir and Midgardians, though this time it stung all the more because it was her and because he deserved this look. It took her some time to gather herself and speak again. Loki watched the son he wished he knew turn his back on the murderer and flee from his presence, hiding like a small child behind his mother and curling into her for protection. With a grim face he turned to face his lover, or most probably, former lover. Her face was torn between betrayal and distress as her world was evidently caving in around her just as much as his was. With an almost defiant creak, her skin expanded and she returned to her native skin; tall, hulking and angry.

Angrboda closed the gap between herself and Loki and stood well within his personal space, towering over his Aesir form, her scarlet eyes cutting into his.

“We are not going to talk about this now,” she said forcefully. “Unfortunately I must consider the bigger picture. So we will talk about the Eternal One, about a plan to defeat him and you will not approach my son, is that clear?” Loki had never heard her voice so hard and so cold before and it pained him all the more to have it directed at him. He should have known that when reconciliation with Thor had gone so well that something would come up to balance it out and tilt him back into misery. What truly weighed on his heart was now the distance stretching out between him and his son who was practically cowering away and Angrboda refusing to let him near the child anymore. No longer was it simply Odin’ betrayal and savage rule that stood between them, but his own choices and his own decisions.

“Say what you have to,” he replied, careful to not appear threatening to an enraged giant parent, but also refusing to sound as compliant or begging for forgiveness as perhaps she would have wanted him to be. She stepped away from him and took a moment to gather her thoughts. She was surprisingly calm when she chose to speak again.

“What you did might not matter. Laufey was unpopular by the end, there are many who would have been glad to see him gone from what my sources tell me. Besides, as I said before, blood is the way on Jotunheim and if you are the blood of the sovereign’s line then you should be accepted. It’s not like sovereigns haven’t purged whole sections of the population before. They just never did it so efficiently I suppose,” she said and Loki knew to take that as a barb.

“Frost giants would follow someone who tried to kill them all?” Bruce asked, a little baffled.

“When I say blood is our way, I mean that our magic is in our blood. The Aesir pour their natural seidr into their weapons and armour, the Jotnar carry ours in our blood. The blood of the legitimate giants is magically tied to that of the current line.”

“That’s why none of the tribal chiefs can claim the throne,” Svali said, coming in to finish the explanation as his bearer looked unable to continue, still struggling with the news of Loki’s attack. “Their blood only claims the loyalty of a section of the populace, the true heir to the throne would unite all of them.”

“You said legitimate giants are tied to the line, what do you mean by that?” Tony asked, picking up on Angrboda’s words earlier, and Svali’s referring to the giants as ‘them’ and not ‘us’.

“Bearer was exiled from Jotunheim when her sire’s line was ended. Exile means cut off from the blood way of the Jotnar,” he answered.

“What benefit would there be to me doing something so ridiculous?” Loki asked.

“You would heal Jotunheim, unite its tribes and make it strong again; strong enough to stand against the Eternal One.”

“Heal it?”

“It would be the least you could do!” She snapped and faced Loki with a fierce snarl. He had never been on the receiving end of her anger and recoiled a little from the ugly way her face twisted, projecting her wrath at him.

“You are the only one who can do it, the Casket will accept no other while you live,” she said, calmer and visibly continuing to exercise great self-restraint.

“I am not the only one with Laufey’s blood, all my children now share it,” Loki suggested, knowing it was grasping at straws because it would be grossly irresponsible to put any of his sons on the throne of Jotunheim. Fenrir was too impulsive; Svali was far too young. Perhaps Jormungandr, if he could be rescued, as he had been of a mostly even temper.

“I didn’t take you for such a coward!” she hissed and stormed out of the room onto the balcony and landing pad outside, freezing the door shut so no one would go out after her.

“For ice giants you two are pretty fiery,” Tony said idly from his tablet where he was scribbling with his fingers furiously as he processed the information and worked hard. He was now figuring what the feasibility of bringing part of the Stark weapons manufacturing back online in order to make armour and weapons for soldiers heading to Asgard.

“I don’t think that’s really helpful,” Bruce murmured from next to him, the scientist, an inadvertent expert in stress, was measuring it in the aliens left in the room, hoping nothing was going to blow up. Literally.

“I tried to kill her race of people, she has the right to angry,” Loki said, but his voice was miserable and held the conviction of a man who blamed it all on himself.

“But you have the chance to save them now,” said Svali who looked up hopefully. Loki marvelled at his son; only a child could put something in such simple and compelling terms; the bit that really mattered. He cast a suspicious thought on the Norns and wondered if they were doing this to him for their amusement or because he was destined to have such a life.

“But let’s say best case scenario and reindeer games goes and plays frosty the snow king, is that going to be enough? I mean, I get the impression this Eternal dude is a bit more powerful than throwing together a bunch of misfits from three worlds?” Tony said, his mind now utterly focussed on the bigger game because he was certain in his priorities.

“The Jotnar are the strongest warriors on the Yggdrasil tree besides those of Asgard,” Thor said. “They would be a valuable addition to the force, but probably still not enough.”

“I was planning on going to petition Surtur in Musspellheim,” Svali said, sheepishly. “We actually got on quite well,” he said, looking away.

“Fire giants?!” Thor exclaimed; he could not help the feeling of excitement that was beginning to well up in him at the thought of these combined forces. Such a union had never existed, they had always warred against each other, not at the side of the fire and ice giants, standing as equals with the mortals.

“There was something else,” Svali said, his voice thoughtful, he was trying very hard to remember clearly what he had been shown. “The eye,” he said and everyone cringed internally as they thought of the eye without a face that once belonged to Odin. “It showed me something, a huge pair of doors, taller than the tallest giant and maybe twice that. It is made of ash and thick bands of gold make a mural; warriors rising from their banqueting table to take their spears and shields to the enemies of Asgard.”

“The doors to Valhalla!” Thor answered, his eyes wide and unbelieving. “The hall of the Einherjar, the greatest of Asgard’s warriors who come when summoned by the king to vanquish only the most terrible of foes. It is every warrior’s dream to be deemed good enough to receive an invitation to the hall our very greatest.”

“The Einherjar,” Loki said, speculating aloud, “would certainly level the battlefield. With the five hundred unleashed with the warriors we already have, the Chitauri would certainly fall. You need the key to Valhalla, but that is the secret of the king, passed on from ruler to ruler.”

“If Odin is dead, is there any way to retrieve that kind of knowledge?” Steve asked.

“We would need someone who keeps the secrets of the dead,” Loki said, realising why his former lover spoke of their daughter earlier. “Angrboda was right. We need to go to Hel.”


	16. Go To Hel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two weeks ago the Avengers would have said that Loki arriving on their doorstep for justice was weird enough, but now their world has been flipped on its head. The nine realms are in peril, their foe seems insurmountable, and to get the next piece of the puzzle they have to visit the super spooky land of the living dead...or something like that.

The Avengers were packing. The past two days had been an utter shitstorm. They had had to call in Nick Fury and explain the whole mess that had suddenly landed in their lap. No one was surprised when he was very resistant to it all at first, but eventually had to concede the importance of what was happening. What seemed to have disturbed him more was the Avengers having gone behind his back to house a wanted war criminal in the form of Loki, and keeping him away from the trickster god. He promised Clint and Tasha very unpleasant debriefings once this saga was resolved, if it ever was, and proceeded to promise them all the help he could give them. Fury would get the new information into a digestible form and present it to the council, while the Avengers would go to Niflheim and get more up-to-date data as things seemed to be moving rapidly and Angrboda’s knowledge was incomplete. Also, he might try to order them to stay on Earth, but he knew that they were now closer to each other than they were to Shield and he might as well keep them onside. Nick Fury, goddamn optimist.

Angrboda and Loki were not talking. There was no uncomfortable animosity or pot-shot-taking across the room, but at the moment they didn’t really have the words for each other; Loki was heartbroken that his lover had lied to him so much and it had hurt far more than he thought it should, and Angrboda was having understandable trouble getting past the fact that he tried to wipe her people out. Svali had been, wisely, staying out of the way of this strange feud and was instead getting rather friendly with Steve and Tony who were very kind and very curious about his alien nature. Being a proud creature, Svali was all too happy to indulge them and assisted where he could in either actually helping pack up parts of the tower or just fulfilling the long list of requests they had of him (can we see your other skin again; can you shoot ice; are your eyes completely red?).

Tasha was down in the lab with Bruce and they were putting all of his notes and research into his own condition into a very safe place so as not to possibly fall into unscrupulous hands while they were away. They had no idea how long this entire trip might last and they had no intention of leaving such things to chance and so where packing. They were at the desk stuffing the strong box with the paper files and notebooks when Tasha grabbed the same book as Bruce and their hands touched for a moment. Bruce mumbled an apology and tried to take his hand away politely, but she held it in place, prolonging their contact.

“Err, Tasha, what are you doing?” he asked, having never seen the spy do something like this before, let alone with him.

“I don’t like to beat around the bush like the rest of humanity,” she said in a quiet and sultry voice. She kissed the doctor squarely on the lips, bringing her hands up to his face and holding them closely together. Bruce emitted more of a surprised noise than one of protest and gently extricated them.

“I’m not going to pretend I understand where that came from, but this is probably not a good idea. In fact I’m certain this is a bad idea,” he said, but her gaze was intense and he found himself doubting his words before he had finished the sentence.

“Denial is bad for you,” she said and moved to kiss him again, but stopped a centimetre short, letting him choose, her lips hovering over his for whole and unfulfilled seconds. Uncertainly, he licked his lips and backed away.

“You might not like to beat around the bush, but I believe in taking things slow, I’m just that sort of guy. So how about, I just do this,” he said and gave her a kiss on the cheek, “and we go to dinner when we get back.”

“What if the world isn’t here when we get back?”

“It will be. It has to be; I’ve got a date,” he said, flashing his full-charm smile and it made Tasha’s lips curl just a fraction, a positive grin by her standards.

Angrboda did not have a way of getting them onto Asgard undetected, but since that was not their destination yet, they were free to make use of the Casket which she had spent a few furtive days getting to know. Svali watched with equal parts fascination and amusement as he stood as an informal guard over his bearer while she negotiated with the Casket, that was the only real word to describe what she had been doing. She spoke to the Casket, telling it what she was trying to achieve and how could they work together to achieve the desired effect and the box hummed with magic in response, a language that only Angrboda seemed able to understand.

“” she asked it in her native Jotnar language, that which the box responded to far more favourably than the Common Tongue. The Casket did not like that suggestion and swirled with power down for a second to display this. “” The inside of the Casket swirled with blue energy at her second idea and she nodded in understanding. This seemed to go on for some time, sometimes a magical effect would ripple around her as they attempted to combine their seidr and make some kind of base compatibility for them to work effectively together. The time they had used the Casket to escape Asgard to Midgard had been mostly the Casket’s sole effort and, since it had never had a corporeal body, could not transport them comfortably or even safely.

As Angrboda was in full conversation with the mystical relic, she did not notice Loki slip into the room with respectful quietness. Svali, of course, noticed and could not quash the roil of tension that creased his muscles and his brow. The young giant was thoroughly conflicted in regards to his sire, as on the one hand his bearer had had nothing but wonderful things to say about him in all their time together and he had always been keen to meet his co-creator. But the events of the past couple of years had muddied that picture quite substantially, his sire had done things beyond simple mischief and some things that seemed malicious and possibly downright evil, so how was he supposed to feel? Loki looked at Svali with obvious longing in his eyes, desperately wanting to get to know his son, to begin making up for all the time they had spent apart, but knew that his child did not want that right now. This clearly brought him pain.

Trying to push this aside for now, the trickster god took a curious interest in Angrboda’s animated conversation and watched her as she persuaded and bargained with the relic for power. He did not say anything as he knew that once Angrboda became aware of his presence her good mood would vanish and her work would be that much harder when she was spending half her energy wading through her own turbulent emotions.

Svali decided to be the brave one and gestured for Loki to follow him out of a door, closing the glass doorway behind him and always keeping one eye on his bearer in the other room, her words now muffled and nearly inaudible.

“Sire,” Svali said by way of greeting and the emotional response in Loki was visible; he was not hiding behind his mask with his son.

“Svali, I know these last few days must have been hard for you,” Loki began, knowing that he should initiate the conversation since Svali had taken the decision and chance to get them in a position where they could talk alone. “It cannot have been easy for you to find out about the evil things your father has done, and in that respect I can certainly know where you are coming from.” Svali nodded, recognising Loki’s own struggles with Odin which he had been filled in on, in patches, over the last couple of days.

“I am in no position to ask your forgiveness, but perhaps I could ask that you understand my reasoning?” This would be as close to redemption as Loki could get, he thought, to at least not have a child hate him for his questionable decisions.

“I know why you allied with the Chitauri and attacked Midgard, I do not have a problem with that at all. The Chitauri are filthy, but sometimes you have to dirty your hands to rid yourself of a nasty foe,” he said, reasonably. Loki looked visibly relieved, but knew that there was a far greater sticking point, with both Svali and Angrboda.

“And for Gastropnir?” Svali didn’t respond for a moment, he was clearly trying to find a politic way of putting his feelings into words.

“Jotunheim has never been my home, I’ve never even been there so it doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to bearer,” he said and looked through the glass to the aforementioned ice giant who was forming ice crystals under the tutelage of the Casket. “It has shaken and upset bearer more than has been let on. I have never heard of bearer’s love wavering before, and it saddens me to watch it happen.” Loki’s heart sank; he knew it had been too tall an order to expect her love to withstand this information.

“She…no longer loves me?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“It’s not that, sire, I don’t think she can ever stop loving you, I just don’t know if she can forgive you.” A grisly cold rushed through Loki as he faced the now almost certain prospect of living a life where he had been reunited with his love, but separating now, their relationship unable to stand the weight of their actions. He could not pretend that he had forgotten his anger at how she had lied to him about her true heritage for the whole time together, especially when they meant so much to each other, but he had to concede he was the less aggrieved party in the scale of things. This did not mean that her wrong was now cancelled out, as a wrong is still a wrong, but it was far more surmountable than this obstacle; he had never really doubted that they would be able to work through the deception and move on, but this was getting in the way.

“Do you feel that I tried to kill you?” Loki asked, knowing that the time for defensive bullshit and excuses was gone, if there ever was a time for that.

“What do you mean?” Svali asked, confused, wondering if Loki was referring to their fight at the top of Avengers tower when they arrived on Midgard.

“When I tried to destroy Jotunheim, I was trying to wipe out every single ice giant from existence,” he clarified; the spotlight on him was cold and terrifying. Svali’s eyes widened as he suddenly understood so much more about the situation between his parents. His bearer was not only upset because Loki had tried to destroy her home, but because she felt he had tried to kill her and her children.

“I hadn’t thought of it like that before,” he admitted, mutely. “But it makes sense. Bearer was very afraid of revealing our Jotun nature to you, perhaps bearer was worried you would react like that…” he said, more thinking aloud than making considered conversation.

“React like a giant-slaying Aesir,” Loki said, his lip twisting in utter disgust at himself. “Fuck…” he cursed, using such a base word for the first time in the possibly two hundred years, and he left the room, too much on his mind and too many warring emotions to bear company now, even that of his son.

The next time anyone saw Loki was when Thor had gone looking for him. No one had seen him in some time and Clint had got antsy that no one was keeping close tabs on the scarred god. Thor had checked the usual places , the landing pad, the window, the rooftop, the kitchen and finally ended up knocking on the door of the room Loki had been assigned.

“Brother?” he said, announcing his presence as he entered the room. A rush of cold blasted Thor in the face and it was not a difficult leap to assume Loki had reverted back to his Jotun form. His brother sat on the bed, staring at himself in the mirror, his increased size making the bed look wholly inadequate in size, the blue of his skin now ringing with life and colour as it had settled properly into his body. His bloody eyes were shining with upset and conflict; all the peace and redemption he had known during his time of grief at Avengers tower now looked to be thrown into disarray as he was clearly distressed.

“Loki, what has happened?” Thor asked, closing the door behind him to keep the others out and approaching his brother, but being careful not to touch the giant, still mindful of the burns they inflicted.

“Who are the real monsters?” he asked his reflection. “Or am I doomed to be a monster no matter what skin I wear?”

“You are no monster,” Thor reassured him, but Loki did not seem convinced.

“My love and my son fear me, they think I tried to kill them. Only a monster is hated and feared by their family!” he said passionately, piling upon himself the same accusations he had levelled at Odin.

“They are in shock, they will come around, have no fear. I have forgiven you and you tried to spear me with Gungnir,” the thunderer said, knowing it was not appropriate to make light of this and instead offered his utmost sincerity to his tortured brother.

“What makes you so sure, Thor?” Loki asked, turning his head to his Aesir brother, who looked so sure of himself in a way that was more mature than the trickster had ever seen Thor.

“Because she loves you even more than I do,” he said, knowingly. Loki surged with emotion, though he wasn’t sure what it was, perhaps a potent mixture that was rendering him blind for a while.

“Svali said that she may still love me but might not be able to forgive me.”

“I think that is how she feels now, but feelings change.”

“And what if it solidifies into hatred?”

“But what if it does not? Surely that is where all your wishes should be. You must not give up on love, Loki, you will be hollow if you do.” There was a pensive silence.

“Since when did you become so wise?” Loki jibed, a smile weakly tugging his twisted lips. Thor smiled broadly.

“It is not a complex matter, brother. But mother once told me that a marriage requires time, patience and trust to work and I see no reason to doubt her words. “

“Pardon the interruption gentlemen,” came the ever-polite voice of Jarvis. “But the tower has been packed and your presence is requested in the lounge.” They stood and Thor looked hard at his brother, making sure he was alright before they left. Loki nodded and they left, the trickster not shrinking down to his usual Aesir form.

Angrboda’s reaction was subdued as Loki and Thor entered the room, though she betrayed a small portion of her surprise that Loki was voluntarily in his Jotun form, as she and Svali were.

“Are we all ready?” Tony asked as he entered the room with two large briefcases, one clearly an Iron Man suit.The other Avengers had small packs which contained their necessities for the journey as none of them had the slightest clue how long they would be. Tasha and Clint had Shield hardshell backpacks, one full of ammunition and one full of special arrowheads to ensure they would be suitably equipped for the inevitable fights they would be getting into.

“I think so,” Bruce said, fingering his jacket nervously. He had mostly packed some spare clothes in his bag, thinking that the chances of him shredding his clothes was far higher than any of the other assembled Avengers and guests present. He passed a look to Tasha, but she was busy checking the holsters on her uniform underneath the long coat she was wearing, but she seemed to sense his eyes on her and shifted so he got a better view. Bruce smirked to himself and turned his attention back to the party; it had only been a tiny moment between them and no one had noticed. He was quite looking forward to coming home.

“So how are we travelling?” Tony asked; he had asked this several times before, but Angrboda had always said that it was in hand and he need not worry about it.

“I have spent time with the Casket, getting to know it and how it works quite well. I can use it to take us where we need to go. It will work in a similar way to the bifrost, but probably not quite as comfortable; the bifrost was an immense creation and was only activated by the relic of Asgard, not a product of it. I will try and make it as comfortable as possible, but you need to be prepared for the possibility of a rough landing.”

“Right,” Steve said, sounding rather unsure of this process. “Let’s get this over with before we get second thoughts.”

“Gather around,” she instructed and everyone huddled close around the giant. She moved her hand and with her trademark shimmer of magic, revealed the Casket into existence and in her hand. It responded quickly and fairly happily to her touch and commands; there was a brief exchange of seidr before it hummed with power and the blue light within it swirled into a furious tornado inside the crystal. The storm was not contained for long and an icy wind whipped through the room, their signal to brace and be ready for transport. Angrboda boomed a word none of them could make out, but they could all see the magic spilling out of her mouth as she said it and it triggered the Casket; the tornado of blue turned black as a hole appeared in the floor beneath them and suddenly they were falling.

She had not been lying, the transit was not like the rushing ecstasy of the bifrost, but more like a terrifying fall through the universe; through the black and stars of the galaxy, the bright nebulae of the cosmos rushing passed and through them as they travelled to what felt like the other side of the universe. Ground was upon them in seconds, just enough time for them to take action and land without injury, though perhaps some without much dignity.

After everyone had got up, brushed themselves off and checked they had all their limbs and luggage, they peered around them at an alien world. The first thing they noticed was a complete lack of colour; everything was grey and dull, and they noticed how the colours of each other were subdued in this place. The second thing they noticed, Widow first, was how utterly still this place was. Not a lick of a breeze, no swaying plants or trees or anything moving at all, it made the silence all that more eerie.

“Is this the place?” Steve asked, setting his shield on his arm. Thor, Loki and Angrboda were looking around them with grim recognition. This world was one of those places where it was always worse than how you remembered it. Thor was the one who found his voice to answer the Captain.

“This is Niflheim, the world of the dead.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I'd like to know what you thought :)


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